Hey look! A blog entry NOT about American Idol!
If you follow the "FridayReads" hashtag on Twitter or you've seen my "currently reading" books on Goodreads, or if you've seen me whining on Facebook, you know I'm STILL trying to read The Gulag Archipelago. And what I've just realized is that my blog is basically the only social media venue I haven't yet complained about this on. Let's put an end to that right now!
To sum: I always wanted to read this, and when Solzhenitsyn died in 2008, I thought, "this is as good a time to read this as any." I started reading it shortly before a business trip to New York. My theory for planes is "enforced reading" and I relish it. So I took this book on the plane and thought I'd read a ton of it on the flight. And I did. Until I felt that feeling you feel when the plane starts to slow down, and I thought, "wow, we sure got here fast." And then I looked out the window and saw Chicago. Which is not close to New York.
There was scary flying in circles using up fuel, the man next to me sending BlackBerry messages to his family, lots of emergency vehicles, and an emergency landing at O'Hare. We eventually got on another plane for NY, but my love of flying had changed (a bit), and I was no longer interested in this book.
It's now April of 2011, and I AM GOING TO FINISH THIS BOOK. Out of sheer stubbornness, if nothing else. I am, after all, the Stubborn Girl in my family, the one who reminded her dad of his sister ... the Stubborn One. And I want to read it on Principle, dangit!
So yesterday in this book, I ran across a word I didn't know and hadn't seen before: gaybisty. Nor had dictionary.com or Google. In fact, as inkognitoh noticed, Google thought we wanted "Gay Big City". I don't even know what that means, because if I were talking about a big gay city, well, that's the order I'd put the words in. fechtbuch came up with my favorite definition so far: It means "bisty attracted to bisties of its own gender". Which was at least entertaining, but not helpful either.
Context might help:
Not everyone swallowed up by the Great Machine was allowed to mingle with the natives of the Archipelago. Well-known foreigners, individuals who were too famous or who were being held secretly, purged gaybisty, could not by any means be seen openly in camps; their hauling a barrow did not compensate for the disclosure and the consequent moral-political damage. In the same way, the socialists, who were engaged in a continuous struggle for their prison rights, could not conceivably be permitted to mingle with the masses but had to be kept separately and, in fact, suffocated separately -- in view of their special privileges and rights.
Two of my Twitter friends (one of whom is also an LJ friend) found this link, which seems the most helpful. Another friend suggested "'Gay Bisty for Me' an Eastwood flick with a speech impediment?" Our friend miketroll suggested KGB-ist, which goes along with that Yahoo discussion thread.
Anyway, it was so strange to encounter this seemingly-unknown word that I thought I'd share it. Now it seems a rather dumb blog entry, but it's written so I'll hit "post" shortly. The last time this happened for me was "palimpsest" about 8 or so years ago ... but at least the dictionary recognized that one! Do you have any new words you've learned lately? And did you know that dictionary.com has an iPhone app? I just learned that yesterday, too!
So that's that. A blog entry of epically nerdy proportions.
Update May 3, 2011 with ... information from the Translator's Notes (yeah, duh):
Soviet Security services personnel, for example, are referred to in a variety of special epithets, some of them carrying overtones of contempt. Most of these have been manufactured from the various initials, at one time and another, of the basic Soviet secret police organization:
(He explains "Checkist")
"Gaybist," which is pronounced "gay-beest," with the accent on the last syllable, is derived from the letters "g" and "b" standing for State Security.
Likewise "Gaybeshnik" -- pronounced "gay-besh-need," with the accent on the second syllable.
To sum: I always wanted to read this, and when Solzhenitsyn died in 2008, I thought, "this is as good a time to read this as any." I started reading it shortly before a business trip to New York. My theory for planes is "enforced reading" and I relish it. So I took this book on the plane and thought I'd read a ton of it on the flight. And I did. Until I felt that feeling you feel when the plane starts to slow down, and I thought, "wow, we sure got here fast." And then I looked out the window and saw Chicago. Which is not close to New York.
There was scary flying in circles using up fuel, the man next to me sending BlackBerry messages to his family, lots of emergency vehicles, and an emergency landing at O'Hare. We eventually got on another plane for NY, but my love of flying had changed (a bit), and I was no longer interested in this book.
It's now April of 2011, and I AM GOING TO FINISH THIS BOOK. Out of sheer stubbornness, if nothing else. I am, after all, the Stubborn Girl in my family, the one who reminded her dad of his sister ... the Stubborn One. And I want to read it on Principle, dangit!
So yesterday in this book, I ran across a word I didn't know and hadn't seen before: gaybisty. Nor had dictionary.com or Google. In fact, as inkognitoh noticed, Google thought we wanted "Gay Big City". I don't even know what that means, because if I were talking about a big gay city, well, that's the order I'd put the words in. fechtbuch came up with my favorite definition so far: It means "bisty attracted to bisties of its own gender". Which was at least entertaining, but not helpful either.
Context might help:
Not everyone swallowed up by the Great Machine was allowed to mingle with the natives of the Archipelago. Well-known foreigners, individuals who were too famous or who were being held secretly, purged gaybisty, could not by any means be seen openly in camps; their hauling a barrow did not compensate for the disclosure and the consequent moral-political damage. In the same way, the socialists, who were engaged in a continuous struggle for their prison rights, could not conceivably be permitted to mingle with the masses but had to be kept separately and, in fact, suffocated separately -- in view of their special privileges and rights.
Two of my Twitter friends (one of whom is also an LJ friend) found this link, which seems the most helpful. Another friend suggested "'Gay Bisty for Me' an Eastwood flick with a speech impediment?" Our friend miketroll suggested KGB-ist, which goes along with that Yahoo discussion thread.
Anyway, it was so strange to encounter this seemingly-unknown word that I thought I'd share it. Now it seems a rather dumb blog entry, but it's written so I'll hit "post" shortly. The last time this happened for me was "palimpsest" about 8 or so years ago ... but at least the dictionary recognized that one! Do you have any new words you've learned lately? And did you know that dictionary.com has an iPhone app? I just learned that yesterday, too!
So that's that. A blog entry of epically nerdy proportions.
Update May 3, 2011 with ... information from the Translator's Notes (yeah, duh):
Soviet Security services personnel, for example, are referred to in a variety of special epithets, some of them carrying overtones of contempt. Most of these have been manufactured from the various initials, at one time and another, of the basic Soviet secret police organization:
(He explains "Checkist")
"Gaybist," which is pronounced "gay-beest," with the accent on the last syllable, is derived from the letters "g" and "b" standing for State Security.
Likewise "Gaybeshnik" -- pronounced "gay-besh-need," with the accent on the second syllable.