Trích đoạn trong chương 25, Lolita:
One day I removed from the car and destroyed an accumulation of teen-magazines. You know the sort. Stone age at heart; up to date, or at least Mycenaean, as to hygiene. A handsome, very ripe actress with huge lashes and a pulpy red underlip, endorsing a shampoo. Ads and fads. Young scholars dote on plenty of pleats—que c’était loin, tout cela! It is your hostess’ duty to provide robes. Unattached details take all the sparkle out of your conversation. All of us have known “pickers”—one who picks her cuticle at the office party. Unless he is very elderly or very important, a man should remove his gloves before shaking hands with a woman. Invite Romance by wearing the Exciting New Tummy Flattener. Trims tums, nips hips. Tristram in Movielove. Yessir! The Joe-Roe marital enigma is making yaps flap. Glamourize yourself quickly and inexpensively. Comics. Bad girl dark hair fat father cigar; good girl red hair handsome daddums clipped mustache. Or that repulsive strip with the big gagoon and his wife, a kiddoid gnomide. Et moi qui t’offrais mon génie … I recalled the rather charming nonsense verse I used to write her when she was a child: “nonsense,” she used to say mockingly, “is correct.”
Theo The Annotated Lolita:
Gagoon is a portmanteau of gag, goon, and baboon, while gnomide draws on the common meaning of gnome (dwarf) and combines its original meaning (from the Greek: a general maxim, a saying) with the nearly synonymous bromide (a tiresome, commonplace person; a hackneyed expression). Kiddoid is also H.H.’s coinage. Because the -oid suffix (resembling, having the form of) is used in scientific terms formed on Greek words, its incongruous usage here becomes humorous (e.g., anthropoid; H.H.’s word is defined as “genus of kid”).