Favorite Nadsat words from "A Clockwork Orange"

[BurtWorm]

My personal favorite: horror show, meaning "great, cool, wicked", derived from the Russian xopowo (khoroSHAW), meaning "good, well."

What's yours?

[jpgray]

1. 'Cutter' for money, 'Charlie' for chaplain, a few others

A lot of it (rozzes, for example) is actually derived from Cockney or other earlier English slang.

[NEDem]

2. yarbles!

I don't know if I spelled it right.

I was glad to see Moore making a yarbles delivery at the DNC.

[BurtWorm]

4. Yup. You did!

:toast:

[elperromagico]

11. Great Bolshy Yarblockos!

n/t

[NewHampshireDem]

21. Good choice!

Right in the yarbles! Ouch! :(

[Sporadicus]

3. appy polly loggy

for 'apology.' Not nadsat, but one from the book I've always liked.

[DivinBreuvage]

5. "horrowshow" is probably the best and most clever

"viddy" is a good one too, I think, and in fact the whole book is written in such a unique but genuinely natural voice -- Alex's narration doesn't sound fake or forced at all. "A Clockwork Orange" is probably the best thing Burgess ever did; certainly it's the only thing he's known for, unless you're a devotee. I tried to read a collection of short stories which he wrote in later life, and found it to be such a tedious disappointment I had to quit after two stories. And the subtitles he wrote for the 1990 French version of Cyrano de Bergerac were absolutely horrid.

[BurtWorm]

7. That's a very interesting observtion.

I can't even name another thing Burgess wrote except Joyce! and Re-Joyce!, which were apparently critical apprecaitions of Joyce's use of language. Actually, didn't he write a revisit to Clockwork Orange after Kubrick's film came out?

Well, at least he wrote one great book. More than I can say for myself. ;)

[DivinBreuvage]

10. I can't tell you... he apparently wrote another about a future dystopia

patrolled by transvestite vampire policemen, but I know nothing else about it. I'm not kidding, I once read that in a short piece on him. I forget the title. The Joyce book certainly does sound like something he would do.

[jpgray]

15. I think you are talking about the Wanting Seed

Where homosexuality is the road to social success because of population problems. And eventually there is a war between the sexes. :D

[DivinBreuvage]

16. Ah, yeah, that sounds about right... many thanks! n/t

[NewHampshireDem]

22. The Wanting Seed is a good read ...

Interestingly enough, it really pissed Burgess off that the work he was best known for was "Clockwork." His best book is probably "Nothing Like the Sun," a novel of Shakespeare's life. Think "Shakespeare In Love" by ... well, by Anthony Burgess. :shrug:

[bobthedrummer]

13. "Flash and Filigree" was authored by Burgess as well as a cool historical

work on Shakespeare-I think...

[BigMcLargehuge]

6. britva (knife)

and Yarblockos (heads)

[Beware the Beast Man]

8. Spatchka

"Bedways is rightways..." Speaking of which, it's time for me to get a little spatchka myself. My divotchka is waiting for me.

[CanuckAmok]

14. Say HiHiHithere to Pretty Polly...

n/t

[jpgray]

9. Oh, and tolchock is a good one, as is krovvy and bratchny. (nt)

[bobthedrummer]

12. litso, grazny, deovotchka, zoobies, millicents, starry vecks, StaJa...

but most of all-the old in out, in out...

[Bossy Monkey]

17. Welly welly well, my droog....

Can't believe I'm the first to pick droog :)

[flamingyouth]

19. You beat me to it!

I actually use that in regular conversations with my friends.

[flamingyouth]

18. Ultraviolence

Horror show is great too.

I also loved the Durango 95 car.

[Spirochete]

20. Tolchok that malchick, my droogies.

haven't read that book in 25 years. hehe