Sea of Poppies (85 page)

+lashkar (*Roebuck)
: See above.

latteal/lathial (*The Glossary)
: See
burkmundauze
.

+lattee/lathee
: ‘There are those who claim that this is merely a “stick”. To them I say: Well, why do you not try the sound of fiddle-
lattees
and see how well it serves? The word is actually a part-synonym for “baton”, since it is applied only to that incarnation of the stick in which it is both an instrument of chastisement and a symbol of imperial authority. By this token, it is the Englishman's version of Hind.
danda
, which derives of course from
dand
, meaning “rule” or “authority”.' Elsewhere Neel notes that a
lathi
was never to be mistaken for the kind of walking stick that went by the name of
penang-lawyer
, ‘with which', as
the Admiral
so aptly remarks, ‘the administration of justice was wont to be settled at Pulo Penang'.

launder/launda
: See
lascar
.

+linkister
: Neel would have taken issue with the
Oracle
's derivation of this word as a corruption of ‘linguister'. He believed it to be, rather, a colloquial
extension of the word ‘link' – one that came to be applied to translators because it so perfectly fitted their function.

loocher (*The Glossary)
: ‘The ease with which this derivative of the Hind.
luchha
has come into English has much to do with its resemblance to its synonym “lecher”: but this too is the reason why it will, in all probability, soon lapse from use.'

loondboond/lundbund (*Roebuck)
: This cognate of
launder
was the curious Laskari word for ‘dismasted'. Speculating on its origins, Roebuck writes, ‘perhaps from
nunga moonunga
, stark naked,' which in turn prompted Neel to observe: ‘How plain the English and how vivid the Laskari, which should be translated, surely, as “dismembered”? Could it be that Roebuck knew neither of lunds nor bunds, and nor, possibly, of their relation to each other?'

+loot
: ‘I am persuaded that this is another word that English owes to Laskari, for this derivative of the Hind.
lút
probably first found employment on the Company
Bawhawder's
ships when applied to captured French vessels (in the sense of “prize” or “plunder”).'

+lorcha
: ‘Whether this is a ship of Portuguese make or a Chinese copy of an European design is a vexed issue; suffice it to say that these vessels are often seen off the coast of southern China.'

luckerbaug (*The Glossary)
: ‘Over this English word, speakers of Hind. and Bengali have been known to come to blows, the former contending that it derives from their
lakkarbagga
, “hyena”, and the latter claiming it to be a corruption of
nekrebagh
, “wolf”. The matter is impossible to decide for I have heard it being applied to both these creatures, and the jackal to boot.'

lugow/lagao (*The Glossary)
: ‘A fine example of a humble word which, having “entered through the hawse-holes”, as the saying goes, has now ascended to the Peerage of the Verb. In its correct Laskari usage, it is the exact nautical counterpart of “to bind” or “to fasten”. Given the English lexicon's general enthusiasm for terms related to binding, tying, beating, pulling and so on, there would seem to be nothing remarkable about its steady rise through the ranks. Its passage into civilian use might well have been occasioned by the phrase
“lugowing
a line” (i.e., “fastening hawse”, “binding a rope” etc.). This expression has gained such widespread currency that it may well be the ancestor of the verb “to
lug
”.'

+maistry/mistri/mystery
: Few words aroused Neel's passions as much as these. A recent discovery among his notes is the draft of a letter to a well-known Calcutta newspaper.

‘Dear Sir: As one of the foremost English journals in the Indian subcontinent, you are rightly regarded as something of an oracle on the subject of that language. It is therefore with the greatest regret that we have noted of late, a creeping misuse of the word
mistri
on your pages. More than once has it been suggested that this is a Hindusthanee word that refers indifferently to plumbers, fitters, masons and repairmen.
Now the truth is, sir, that the word
mistri
along with its variants,
maistry
and
mystery
, are, after
balti
, the commonest Portuguese-derived words in the languages of India (by way of
mestre
). Like
balti
they may well have travelled by a nautical route, for the original meaning of
maistry
was similar to its English cognate “master” (both being derived from the Latin
magister
), and was probably first used in the sense of “ship's master”. It is in a similar sense that the term
maistry
is still employed, being applied mainly to overseers, and preserving fully the connotations of authority that are implicit in its English cousin “master”. It is interesting to note that in India as in Europe, the connotations of this fecund term have developed along parallel paths. Thus, just as the French
maître
and Italian
maestro
imply also the mastery of a trade or craft, so similiarly is the word
mistri
applied in Hindusthanee to artisans and master-craftsmen: it is in this latter form that it is now applied to repairmen, workmen and the like. On this subject, sir, might it also be suggested that you would do well to adopt the variant spelling
mystery
, which possesses the great advantage of making evident the word's direct connubium with the Latin
ministerium
(from which we get such usages as “The Mystery Plays”, so-called because they were produced by workmen who practised a
mistery
, or
ministerium
)? Would this not also deepen our sense of awe when we refer to the “Fashioner of All Things” as the “Divine
Mystery
”?'

This letter was never posted, but in keeping with his tenets, Neel always used the variant
mystery
.

+mali/malley/mauly/molley/mallee
: ‘The
mysteries
of the garden.'

+malum
: ‘Some dictionaries persist in misspelling this word as
malem
even though its correct form has been a part of the English language since the seventeenth century. This Laskari word for “ship's officer” or “mate” is, of course, derived from the Arabic
mu'allim
, “knowledgeable”.'

+mandir
: See
sammy-house
.

masalchie (*The Glossary)
: See
bobachee
.

maski
: ‘In no way is this curious expression connected with “musk” or “masks”. In the
zubben
of the South China Coast, it figures rather as something that would be described in Hind. as a
takiya-kalám
– that is to say, an expression that is used not for its meaning (of which it possesses none) but merely out of habit, so that it becomes, through constant repetition, as familiar and as unremarkable as a pillow or
tuckier
.'

+mochi/moochy
: ‘The
mystery
of leather.'

+mootsuddy/mutsaddi
: See
dufter
.

+munshi/moonshee
: See
dufter
.

mura (*Roebuck)
: ‘For a long time, I had no idea what the lascars meant when they spoke of the “jamna mura” and the “dawa mura”. Only later was I to learn that this was their word for “tack”, a rare borrowing from the Italian.'

+mussuck
: ‘Strange indeed is this name for the leather water-bag carried by
bhistis
, for it is but the Arabic for puckrow.'

muttranee (*The Glossary)
: See
halalcore
.

+nainsook/nayansukh
: ‘ “Pleasing to the eye” was the name of this fine cloth in Hind. The same cannot be said, however, of the English corruption of our word.'

nuddee (*the Admiral)
: ‘This was as much a river as a
nullah
is a ditch, so why one should be universally used and the other not is beyond my reckoning.'

+nullah
: See above.

ooloo/ullu
: See
gadda/gadha/gudder
.

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/pawnee/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-pawnee
and
blatty-

pawnee
. This was another instance in which he gave full credence to Barrère & 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 Seychelles 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 pronouncing 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 Barrère & Leland's borrowing of Sir Henry's observations: ‘A madman, an idiot, a dolt. [From] Hindu
págal
. . . 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-shák (*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
bayadère
).'

+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 “multitude”.'

+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 pronounces on all matters”? Surely this is a closer approximation of its somewhat satirical English connotations than our respectful Hind.
pundit
?'