Chasing Rabbit Trails

Was dashing off an entry to my semblog and found myself using the cliché "on the tip of my tongue." Noticing that I used the cliché was not enough to make me change the sentence, because it wasn't that important of a post. But sitting here alone in the quietness of a Saturday morning in a house full of people who know what Saturday morning's are for (sleeping in) my mind got to wondering...where did that phrase come from?

Now granted I didn't exactly spend hours on it, but I couldn't find the source other than it's something that originated in the US (one site), yet it has a Latin equivalent (another site). So I got nowhere there.

But whilst I looked I stumbled up on a delicious quotation from Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita. For those of you who aren't familiar with the book, it's this disturbing book about a pedophile and his obsession over a 13 year old girl. It should probably never be read for pleasure, and even when forced to read it, you should only do so with a great amount of protesting. But the protesting will slow a great deal when you read his breathtaking prose. For example, the quotation that got me started on this, the opening paragraph:

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta.

Doesn't that just give ya goosebumps?

Of course that one sets the stage for another immortal line from Humbert Humbert (the first person narrator and all-around scumbag):

You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.