(Roughly) Daily

.. a veritable treasury of similarly helpfully defined words at My First Dictionary.

As we celebrate the anniversary of the first Earth Day (1970), we might scribble a birthday greeting to a master wordsmith, the “daddy” of Lolita,  Vladimir Nabokov, accomplished lepidopterist, creator of chess problems, and novelist extraordinaire..

Nabokov was born on April 10, 1899 according to the Julian calendar in use in Russia at that time. The Gregorian equivalent is April 22– found by adding 12 days to the Julian date…  one shouldn’t be taken in by sources that incorrectly calculate a date of 23 April, using the 13-day difference in the calendars that applied only after 28 February 1900. Indeed, in Speak, Memory Nabokov himself affirms today’s date as the big day, and unpacks the too-common error.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov