Lolita

Lolita is a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, written in English and published in 1955 in Paris, in 1958 in New York City, and in 1959 in London. It was later translated by its Russian-native author into Russian. The novel is notable for its controversial subject: the protagonist and unreliable narrator, a 37-to-38-year-old literature professor called Humbert Humbert, who is obsessed with the 12-year-old Dolores Haze, with whom he becomes sexually involved after he becomes her stepfather. "Lolita" is his private nickname for Dolores. Nabokov's own translation of the book into Russian was published by Phaedra Publishers in New York in 1967.

Lolita quickly attained a classic status; it is today regarded as one of the prime achievements in 20th century literature, though also among the most controversial. The novel was adapted to film by Stanley Kubrick in 1962, and again in 1997 by Adrian Lyne. It has also been adapted several times for stage and has been the subject of two operas, two ballets, and an acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful Broadway musical. Its assimilation into popular culture is such that the name "Lolita" is now often used to describe a sexually precocious girl.

OL

OL may refer to:

Langues d'oïl

The langues d'oïl (/ˈwiːl/ French: [lɑ̃ɡᵊdɔjl]), or oïl languages (also in French: langues d'oui [lɑ̃ɡᵊdwi]), are a dialect continuum that includes standard French and its closest autochthonous relatives spoken today in the northern half of France, southern Belgium, and the Channel Islands. They belong to the larger Gallo-Romance languages, which also cover most of east-central (Arpitania) and southern France (Occitania), northern Italy and eastern Spain (Catalan Countries), although some linguists place Catalan into the Ibero-Romance grouping instead.

Linguists divide the Romance languages of France, and especially of Medieval France, into three geographical subgroups: Langues d'oïl and occitan, named after their words for 'yes' (oïl, òc), and Franco-Provençal (Arpitan), which is considered transitional.

Meanings and disambiguation

Langue d'oïl (in the singular), Oïl dialects and Oïl languages (in the plural) designate the ancient northern Gallo-Romance languages as well as their modern-day descendants. They share many linguistic features, a prominent one being the word oïl for yes. (Oc was and still is the southern word for yes, hence the langue d'oc or Occitan languages). The most widely spoken modern Oïl language is French (oïl was pronounced [o.il] or [o.i], which has become [wi], in modern French oui).

Loening OL

The Loening OL, also known as the Loening Amphibian, was an American two-seat amphibious biplane built by Loening for the United States Army Air Corps and the United States Navy.

Design

First flown in 1923, the OL was a high-performance amphibian with a large single hull and stabilising floats fitted underneath each lower wing. The landing gear was retractable by use of a hand-crank in the cockpit, and the plane was equipped with a tailskid for operations on land. It had a tandem open cockpit for a crew of two. The aircraft could be flown from either cockpit, with a wheel control in the forward cockpit and a removable stick control in the rear. Navigation and engine instruments were located in the forward cockpit.

The hull was built of Duralumin on a wooden frame, with five watertight compartments connected through a selector switch to a bilge pump in the rear cockpit. Plugs in the bottom of each compartment permitted drainage on the ground. The fuselage was constructed on top of the hull. The aircraft was strength-tested at Columbia University.