Part 39 (1/2)

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'.