Dyed White and Vanya Moroz

Opening my blog dashboard, I saw the name of my most recent post, "Dyed white," and for some reason spontaneously misread the first word as if it were not the English past participle of dye but rather a transliteration of the Russian дед ("grandpa"), with the ye pronounced as in yes. My main association with that Russian word is Дед Мороз, usually Englished as Father Frost (though literally "grandfather"), who is the Russian version of Santa Claus. This corresponds somewhat to "Dyed White," since frost is white.

This tendency for English-speakers to read ye as a "long i" sound makes it difficult to transliterate Russian names in an intuitive way. Ded Moroz is the usual transliteration now, but a reader ignorant of Russian would naturally pronounce that as dead, without the palatalization. However, Dyed is liable to be pronounced as died. One error of this type I remember from my early childhood: My father was reading a bedtime story, and when he came to the name Pyetr -- obviously meant to be Петр, a form of the name Peter (more usually Пётр in Russian) -- he read the first syllable as pie, making the name rhyme with lighter. Now, with the connection between Peter and pie firmly established, that old error has retroactively become a sync.

Among English speakers, the personification of frost is Jack Frost, suggesting that Dyed White could be one of the four Jacks or Knaves. Which one, though? Cheek Holder is the natural choice, since he has already been linked to Santa Claus and thus indirectly to Dyed Moroz. However, the Russian context suggests another possibility. Jack is a diminutive for John, of which the Russian form is Ivan. Thus, using the common diminutive for Ivan, we arrive at Vanya Moroz as the Russian "translation" of Jack Frost. The significance of the name Vanya is twofold. First, it is the name of the title character, played by Wallace Shawn (Vizzini), in the film Vanya on 42nd Street. Bill has identified Vizzini as a symbol of Pharazon. More obviously, Vanya is a name straight out of Tolkien -- any of the 14 Vanyar, one of the kindreds of the Eldar. The king of the Vanyar, and thus the Vanya par excellence, was Ingwe. At one point Bill identified Ingwe with Pharazon and Peter. Jack Frost is also traditionally responsible for painting the leaves different colors in autumn, imagery which we have come to associate with Humpty Dumpty and his "great fall." So, for multiple reasons, Dyed White seems more likely to be Fudge Boy than Cheek Holder.

If the surnames Frost and White are interchangeable, Jack Frost or Vanya Moroz could also be Vanya White -- a name obviously suggestive of Vanna White, cohost with Pat Sajak of the game show Wheel of Fortune. This show and its hosts have come up repeatedly in syncs, including in the comments on "Igxuhp zvmwqfb Jack dry stolen."

After typing most of the above, I went into the shoe room of my school, where last year the labels on the cubbies formed the message "Leo, Egbert, Peter." Leo no longer studies here, and Egbert's name has for some reason been moved to another shelf, so two names are now all alone in that area: Peter and Ivan.

Since my musings on Dyed White led me both to Pyetr/Peter and to Vanya/Ivan, this seems significant.

One more thing: The Mxyztplk in me can't help but notice that the first o in Moroz, because it precedes a stressed syllable, is actually pronounced as a -- making it the Book of Mormon name Zoram spelled backwards. I've never given that character much thought, but his role as keeper of the keys suggests a possible link to Peter. He starts off as a servant of the wicked Laban (whose name means "white") but becomes a true friend to Nephi.