concept
Antre-Nu-Soi-Dit (invented surname)
Antre-Nu-Soi-Dit
also: Антр-Ну-Суади, entre nous soit dit
A mock-French dancing instructor's "surname" that is not a name at all but a garbled transliteration of the French filler phrase entre nous soit dit ("between ourselves, so to speak") -- satirizing pretentious francophone affectation among minor provincial tutors.
Reading notes
- Visiting Cards §6 между нами будь сказано
The French phrase entre nous soit dit ("between ourselves, so to speak") has been mistaken by the semi-literate dancing instructor for his own surname and transliterated wholesale into Cyrillic (Антр-Ну-Суади) -- a joke about provincial francophone pretension that only works if the reader recognizes the buried French underneath the garbled Russian transliteration, which the story helpfully glosses in a footnote-style aside.