(urth) Dionysus

[Lee Berman]

>Dan'l D. Oakes: But do recall, please, that Wolfe is an American writer. (I almost wrote 
>"an _essentially_ American writer," but realized that, while that is my impression, I have 
>no real data to back it up.) As such, he might be expected to use "vine" in the American sense.
>Against this, of course, is the fact that he is steeped in the Classics.

Almost identical to what I would respond. As a purely anecdotal bit of data, I'll report that
the geography of my childhood and adulthood life is quite similar to Gene Wolfe's so it is
possible that he and I are very close in regional American dialect of English. If you said the
word "vine" to me, my first two thoughts would be of the brown snakey things seen on treks 
through our wooded areas and the things that Tarzan swung on. I've even had grapes growing in
my backyard at times but I think there of "grape arbors" not vines.
 
If pressed for further associations I would mention Hollywood and Vine and several other city's
Vine St. I'm familiar with. To get me to think of the wine fruit you'd probably have to press (heh) even
further and actually say "grapevine". 
 
And I say all this realizing that just minutes ago (really) I listened to the song, "I Heard it Through the Grapevine" (Gladys Knight+Pips version). That song and usage, of course, has nothing to do with fruit or wine.