Sea Of Poppies Part 39

oolta-poolta / oolter-poolter (*The Glossary): 'While it is by no means incorrect to gloss this expression as having the sense of "upside down", it ought to be noted that in Laskari it was applied to a vessel that had been tipped over on her beam ends.'

paik (*The Glossary): See burkundaz.

pani/p.a.w.nee/parny: Neel hotly disputed the notion that the Hind. word for water had entered the English language through its use in such compounds as brandy-p.a.w.nee and blatty-p.a.w.nee. This was another instance in which he gave full credence to Barrre & Leland's derivation of it from the gypsy word for water. See also bilayuti.

parcheesi/parcheezi: Neel was outraged to find that the familiar pastime of his childhood, pachcheesi, was being packaged and sold as Ludo, Parcheesi etc. 'Would that we could copyright and patent all things of value in our patrimony, before they are claimed and stolen by these greed-mongers, who think nothing of making our children pay for the innocent diversions that have been handed, even to the poorest of them, as a free bequest from the past.' No shop-bought version of this game was ever allowed to cross his threshold, and he made sure that his children played it as he had, on a square of embroidered cloth, with the brightest of Seych.e.l.les cowries.

peechil (*Roebuck): See agil.

penang-lawyer: See lathi.

phaltu-tanni: See turnee.

pijjin/pidgin: 'Numerous indeed are the speculations on the origins of this much-used expression, for people are loathe to accept that it is merely a way of p.r.o.nouncing that commonest of English words: "business". But such indeed is the case, which is why a novice or griffin is commonly spoken of as a learn-or larn-pijjin. I have recently been informed of another interesting compound, stool-pijjin, which is used, I believe, to describe the business of answering Nature's call.'

poggle/porgly/poggly (*The Glossary, The Barney-Book): On this word Neel quotes with disapproval Barrre & Leland's borrowing of Sir Henry's observations: 'A madman, an idiot, a dolt. [From] Hindu pagal ... A friend used ... to adduce a macaronic adage which we fear the non-Indian will fail to appreciate: "Pogal et pecunia jaldi separantur", i.e., a fool and his money are soon parted.' To this Neel adds: 'If such were indeed the case then none would be more deserving of pauperdom than these pundits, for a poggle may be out of his mind, but he is no fool.'

pollock-saug / palong-shak (The Glossary): 'Sir Henry has never been so wrong as in his gloss of this most glorious of greens: "A poor vegetable, called also 'country spinach'".'

pootly/putli (*The Glossary): 'Sir Henry, ever the innocent, glosses pootly-nautch as if it were mere Hind. for "doll-" or "puppet-dance"! But one can scarcely doubt that he knew full well what the words meant in English (for which see bayadre).'

pucka/pucca: Neel believed that the English meaning of this word came not from the Hind. 'ripe', as was often said, but rather the alternative denotation - 'cooked', or 'baked' - in which sense it was applied to 'baked' or 'burnt' bricks. 'A pucka sahib is thus the hardest and most brickish of his kind. Curiously the locution "kutcha sahib" is never used, the word griffin serving as its equivalent.'

puckrow puckerow pakrao (*The Glossary): 'It is easy to be misled into thinking that this is merely the Hind. for "hold" or "grasp" and was borrowed as such by the English soldier. But the word was quite commonly used also to mean "grapple". When used by pootlies and dashties in this sense its implications were by no means soldierly.'

pultan/paltan: 'An interesting instance of a word which, after having been borrowed by Hind. (for its military application "platoon") is reabsorbed into English with the slightly altered sense of "mult.i.tude".'

punch: 'Strange indeed that the beverage of this name has lost all memory of its parent: Hind. panj ("five"). In my time we scorned this mixture as an unpalatable economy.'

pundit: Neel was not persuaded of the validity of the usual etymology of this word, whereby it is held to derive from a common Hind. term for 'learned man' or 'scholar'. 'A hint as to its true origin is to be seen in the eighteenth-century French spelling of it, pandect. Does this not clearly indicate that the word is a compound of "pan" + "edict" - meaning "one who p.r.o.nounces on all matters"? Surely this is a closer approximation of its somewhat satirical English connotations than our respectful Hind. pundit?'

punkah-wallah/-wala: 'The mystery of the fan.'

purwan (*Roebuck): Yard (spar from which sail is set); here Neel has underlined carefully his tutor's footnote: 'Purwan, I think, is compounded of Pur, a wing, or feather, and Wan, a s.h.i.+p, which last word is much used by the lascars from Durat (properly Soorut) etc., so that Purwan, the yards of the s.h.i.+p, might also be translated as the wings upon which the s.h.i.+p flies'.

pyjama/pajama: 'There must surely be some significance to the fact that the Hind. for leg (pao) has received a much warmer welcome into the English language than the word for head (sir). While variants of pao figure in many compounds, including char+poy, tea+poy, and py+jama, sir has to its credit only turban (sirbandh) and seersucker (sirsukh).'

quod/qaid: See chokey.

rankin/rinkin (*The Barney-Book): 'A fine piece of English gypsy-slang, from our own rangin - colourful.'

rawnee/rani: 'Although this Hind. word did indeed mean "queen", in English usage it had another connotation, for which see bayadre.'

roti/rooty/rootie: 'It is my suspicion that the Oracle will absorb this as the Hind. roti, but it could just as well, as the Barneymen rightly observe, make its travels in the latter two forms, taken from the Bengali - these are, after all, the words that English soldiers commonly use in describing the bread that is served in their chownees.' It is no mystery that the English soldier does not trouble to distinguish between leavened and unleavened bread since the latter is a quant.i.ty unknown to his tongue: thus, what a rootie is to him would be to a sepoy a pao-roti. I am told that it is not merely the presence of yeast, but also of this prefix, pao, that prevents many sepoys from eating English bread: they believe that yeasted dough is kneaded with the feet (pao) and is therefore unclean. If only it were to be explained to them that the pao of pao-roti is merely a Hind. adaptation of po, the Portuguese for bread! Imagine, if on some arduous march a starving soldier were to deny himself succour due to a grievous misconception: a simple word of explanation would spare him his cries of bachaw! bachaw! This, if anything, is a perfect ill.u.s.tration of why etymology is essential to man's survival.'

ruffugar ruffoogar rafugar (*The Glossary): 'In philological circles a cautionary tale is told of a griffin who, having been set upon by a scruffy budmash, berated his a.s.sailant with the cry: "Unhand me, vile ruffoogar!" The speaker was mistaken in believing this to be Hind. for "ruffian", for a ruffoogar is merely a clothes-repairer.'

Rum-Johnny (*The Barney-Book): 'Taken from Hind. Ramjani, this word had a wholly different connotation in English, for which see bayadre.'

rye/rai (*The Barney-Book): Neel was right in predicting that this common Hind. word for 'gentleman' would appear in the Oracle in its English-gypsy variant rye, rather than in the usual Indian form.

sabar (*Roebuck): topgallant or t'gallant; see dol.

sahib: This word was a source of bafflement to Neel: 'How did it happen that the Arabic for "friend" became, in Hind. and English, a word meaning "master"?' The question was answered by a grandson who had visited the Soviet Union; on the margins of Neel's note he scribbled: '"Sahib" was to the Raj what "comrade" is to Communists - a mask for mastery.' See also Beebee.

salwar/shalwar/shulwaur: See kameez.

sammy (*The Barney-Book): 'The anglice of Hind. swami, from which sammy-house to mean "mandir": whether this is preferable to "paG.o.da" is a matter of debate.'

sammy-house: See above.

sawai (*Roebuck): staysail; see dol.

seacunny/seaconny: On this word, meaning 'helmsman', Neel penned a note that covers the verso of the four of hearts: 'It is not uncommon to hear it said that the term seacunny/seaconny is derived from an old English word meaning "rabbit" - to wit: "cony" or "coney" (seacunny thus being interpreted to mean "sea-rabbit"). Beware anyone who tells you this, for he is having a quiet laugh at your expense: he probably knows full well that "coney" has a secret, but far more common, use (as when a London buy-em-dear says to a prospective customer, "No money, no coney"). This is why the more pucka ma'amsahibs will not allow the word seacunny to pa.s.s their lips, preferring to use the absurd expression sea-bunny. ("Well then, madam," I was once tempted to say, "if we are thus to describe a helmsman, should we not also speak of the Great Sea-bunny in the Sky?") If only one could find the words to explain to these ladies that no rabbit need fear the conning of seacunnies: the term is utterly harmless and derives merely from the Arabic sukkan, meaning "rudder", from which we get sukkani and thus seacunny.' See also lascar.

seersucker: Neel objected vehemently to the notion that the name of this cotton material was derived (as the Oracle was later to contend) from the Persian s.h.i.+r-o-shakkar, or 'milk and sugar'. 'By what stretch of the imagination could anyone imagine that a sweet, milky syrup would be pleasant to wear on the skin?' Instead, following Sir Henry, he derived the word from sirsukh, 'joy of/to the head', on the a.n.a.logy of turban (which he thought to be derived from Hind. sirbandh - 'head-band'). He took the view that the terms were aptly paired since the latter was sometimes made of the former. As supplemental evidence he cited a maxim which he claimed to be common among lascars: sirbandh me sirsukh- 'a turban is happiness for the head'.

sepoy/seapoy: 'The variant spelling, sea-poy, has caused much confusion over the ages (see charpoy). One ill-informed wordy-pundit has even espoused the theory that this term is a misp.r.o.nunciation of "sea-boy" and was thus originally a synonym for lascar. This is, of course, an elementary misunderstanding and could be easily corrected if the English spelling of sepoy were to be altered to sepohy. This would have the dual advantage of advertising this word's descent from the Persian/Turkish sipahi, while also making evident its kins.h.i.+p to the French spahi, which refers similarly to a certain kind of colonial mercenary.'