Acersecomic

Brain Pickings Weekly's Unusual Words Rendered in Bold gives a useful word for me to know:

Acersecomic: A person whose hair has never been cut.  

And World Wide Words gives this further information:

"The legitimacy of this word rests entirely on two appearances in dictionaries, in 1623 and 1656. It seems never to have been used seriously and ever since has been held up as an example of an odd word, in modern times in works with titles like The Joy of Lex,Poplollies and Bellibones, Have a Word on Me, and Dimboxes, Epopts, and other Quidams.

It means a person whose hair has never been cut. Though that may appear comic to some, there’s nothing humorous in its etymology. The word is from the classical Latinacersecomes, a long-haired youth, a word borrowed from an earlier Greek one that was made up from kome, the hair of the head (which is where comic comes from in the ending), keirein, to cut short, and the prefix a-, not. Though this sounds like a aged curmudgeon’s way to talk about unkempt youngsters who weren’t like that in his day, it was actually neutrally descriptive — it was usual for Roman and Greek youths to wear their hair long until they reached manhood.

Greek kome has given us one sense of coma: a diffuse cloud of gas and dust that surrounds the nucleus of a comet. The same -comic ending turns up in two terms that, if possible, are even rarer: acrocomic, having hair at the tip, as in a goat’s beard (acro-means tip) and xanthocomic, a person with yellow hair (from Greek xanthos, yellow)."

Xanthocomic Acersecomic.

Language - drifting around the world

I recently learnt that the fruit known as the chickoo in North India and sapota in South India is called ‘chicozapota’ in its native Mexico!

  

One of the other fascinating discoveries in my life has been the knowledge that many things with the sound "chi" in their name came from China! So we have:

1. The Lychee - native to southern China and South East Asia
2. Daal-chini - which I have always translated as cinnamon but apparently what is native to China is the Cassia. Cassia is generally a thicker bark with darker coloration, though is often confused with cinnamon. I don't know which one is actually used at home, but at some point its name source is definitely Chinese.  
3. Chenab -  In popular lore, the river got its name because its source was assumed to be somewhere over the mountains in China (Chin-ab - Waters of China)*

I don't understand why cheeni is cheeni though (I mean sugar, not a Chinese person).

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*The other story for the origin of the name of the river is its tributaries, Chandra and Bhaga, which have their confluence at the village of Tandi. I like Chin-ab better. 

Firangi, Gora and Vilayati

A recent conversation made me realize that I tend to use the word firangi while talking about white tourists in India and got me thinking about the other words used for them. My knowledge is restricted largely to Punjabi, but at least for north India, I think the list below would be almost if not fully exhaustive. Where I did get stuck was in figuring out the difference in the usage for the terms, especially firangi and gora.*


Firangi  - Along with gora, the more common word used to describe a foreigner. I had always assumed that word's origin was fi-rang - other coloured. But it appears I was wrong.  Wikipedia informs that the word is not just used in the Indian sub-continent, but across much of the middle-eastern world:

"Because the Frankish kingdom (Francia, the name origin of "France") dominated Western Europe for centuries, terms derived from "Frank" were used by many in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and beyond as a synonym for Latin Christians or Western and Northern Europeans in general."

The french, though, also have their own specific word in the sub-continent - francisi. 

Gora (f. - Gori) - White-complexioned. According to the Concise Hobson-Jobson, the word referred to any European who was not a sahib, 'sahib' being used when "no disrespect was intended". (Now of course, we are masters of our own fate and no longer use the word for the white man; instead we use it to obsequiously address our government masters who possibly hold more power than their pre-independence compatriots in ruining lives).

Even though Hobson-Jobson may consider the term not a very polite one, it means a fair complexion and is used to refer to fair skinned Indians also. Surinder Kaur singing about the chaos caused by the gori and her jhanjraan (anklets) is quite a Punjabi favourite (our unhealthy obsession with fair skin notwithstanding, it is a beautifully sung song).

Vilayati is the equivalent of the hindi Videshi - a foreigner,  and comes from the arabic wilayat meaning 'a kingdom, a province' and in Hindustani is used to indicate "any imported article or good", including a person. It also gave rise to the English term Blighty for their homeland, as in "Fifty of the 76 escapees were summarily shot by the Gestapo on Hitler's orders, and only three (none British) made a successful "home run" to Blighty."

And though vilayati-pani means soda-water, frangipani apparently has no connection with India. I clarify only because I assumed it did and meant the same thing as vilayati-pani. Frangipani is the common name of the flower Plumeria, known in the subcontinent as champa, and gets its name from an Italian marquess.  

Hobson-Jobson also gives the term "Blatty", again derived from vilayati, for two plants in south India, the Hydrolea zeylanica and the Sonneratia acida, though I can't figure out why - with my limited botanical understanding, they both seem to be native to this side of the world (unlike the vilayati-baingan or the tomato). 

Angrej (Angrez) (f. - Angrejan) - Strictly speaking, refers to an Englishman but colloquially can be used to refer to any foreigner. If you try and act too cool, you might get to hear "Baala angrej ban dae" (You think you're an Angrej?) in Punjabi.
   
Englandi - Used specifically for a resident of England, irrespective of ethnicity, race, color etc., as demonstrated by one of the pater's friends known to me only as Englandi. Yes, he lives there.

The question still remains - when do you use which term? And I don't know the answer. Sometimes one, sometimes the other term comes more easily to the tongue. Shah Muhammad's epic on the Anglo-Sikh wars is titled Jangnama - Singhan tey Firangian (Book of War - the Singhs and the Firangis.)  and while firangi is the more common word used by him, he also uses gorey and angrej. Perhaps there isn't and never was much difference between a firangi and a gora.

To sign off, a white man's views on considering himself a firangi:

‘Since my first visit to India over ten years ago, I have grown increasingly fascinated by the word firangi. To translate it simply as ‘foreigner’ doesn’t do it justice. The Hindi videshi is a world away, quite literally, from firangi, a Mughal-era Persian makeover of ‘Frank’ (or Frenchman). My former Hindi teacher, who favours a chaste Sanskritised language purged of all alien interlopers, grimaces whenever she hears the word. She considers firangi an impure term, a linguistic foreign body that has illegitimately become Indian. But that impurity is precisely what I love about the word firangi. And it is also why I consider myself a firangi, not a videshi. I am a foreigner, but I also am not: my time in India has transformed me, changing how I speak, how I think, what I wear, what I eat, the music I listen to. Slowly but surely, like the word firangi itself, main Hindustani ban raha hoon.’ 

For the rest of the interview with Jonathan Gil Harris, read here.

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*These terms are, as far as I know, used only for the white western people. For people of all other regions of the world and India, I don't know if we have any politically-correct words at all.

The Lady Mondegreen.

A Mondegreen is a misheard word or a phrase (most often in a song) that still makes sense, though not the original sense.

"Sylvia Wright coined the word ‘mondegreen’ in an article published in Harper's Magazine in November 1954, ‘The Death of Lady Mondegreen’. ‘When I was a child,’ she wrote, ‘my mother used to read aloud to me from Percy's Reliques [of Ancient English Poetry]. One of my favorite poems began, as I remember:Ye Highlands and ye Lowlands,Oh, where hae ye been?They hae slain the Earl Amurray, [sic]And Lady Mondegreen.’‘By now,’ she went on, after a digression or two,several of you more alert readers are jumping up and down in your impatience to interrupt and point out that, according to the poem, after they killed the Earl Amurray, they laid him on the green. I know about this, but I won’t give in to it. Leaving him to die all alone without even anyone to hold his hand—I won’t have it. The point about what I shall hereafter call mondegreens, since no one else has thought up a word for them, is that they are better than the original."

The above explanation is from a medical journal and has a most interesting collection of words that I've come across.

Wiki and the internet have a whole series of mondegreens. A few of my favourites below:

France is Bacon via TYWKIWDBI

[–]Lard_Baron 3891 points 1 year ago

sorry, this has been archived and can no longer be voted on

When I was young my father said to me:

"Knowledge is Power....Francis Bacon"

I understood it as "Knowledge is power, France is Bacon".

For more than a decade I wondered over the meaning of the second part and what was the surreal linkage between the two? If I said the quote to someone, "Knowledge is power, France is Bacon" they nodded knowingly. Or someone might say, "Knowledge is power" and I'd finish the quote "France is Bacon" and they wouldn't look at me like I'd said something very odd but thoughtfully agree. I did ask a teacher what did "Knowledge is power, France is bacon" meant and got a full 10 minute explanation of the Knowledge is power bit but nothing on "France is bacon". When I prompted further explanation by saying "France is Bacon?" in a questioning tone I just got a "yes". at 12 I didn't have the confidence to press it further. I just accepted it as something I'd never understand.

It wasn't until years later I saw it written down that the penny dropped.

Bob Dylan's strange lyrics - Dead ants are my friends, they're blowin' in the wind

On TV, during Olympics - Hung Aryan Swimmers

And two from the family
The Bally Sagoo Aaja Nachle cassette in its heyday, was quite a favourite with the kids and was played repeatedly on long, family trips, and for three young boys, this is how two of the songs went -

The original:

O mundeyo aa gayi oi,

sir tey gagar rakhin

(Look boys, there she comes,

With a pitcher on her head)

The brothers' version:
O mundeyo aa gayi oi,
Sir bacha key rakhin!
(Watchout boys, here she comes,
Don't lose your heads now!)

The original:
Preeto dey ghar da bhabhi,
Kunda kharka baitha
(I knocked on the doors of Preeto's house)

The brothers' version:
Preeto dey ghar da bhabhi,
Munda kharka baitha
(I beat up a boy belonging to Preeto's family)

Mangoes and Melons

Now that summer is almost upon us, with the heat and the dust and the electricity cuts, one of the (many) things that make me look forward to the season are the magical summer fruits - tarbooz, kharbuza, angoor, jamun, litchis (how I remember gorging on them on long summer afternoons) and of course, the Amb!

This post is all about the 'Amb' or the 'Mango', with a bit of Babur and his melons thrown in. 

The etymological root of the word Mango is the Tamil manga or man-gai, "which is perhaps a euphonic transposition of am-kai (mango fruit) from the Sanskrit amba (A historical dictionary of Indian food - K.T. Achaya). The word Manga was first used in Italian in 1510 by Ludovico di Varthema (who was apparently the first European non-Muslim to have entered Mecca) and who writes -

"Another fruit is also found here which is called the 'Amba', the stem of which is called 'Manga'...and when it is ripe it is yellow and shining. This fruit has a stone within like a dried almond, and is much better than the Damascus plum. A preserve is made of this fruit, such as we make of olives, but they are much superior."   

The word Mango was used for the first time more than a 100 years later by Dr. John Fryer (of the East India Company) while describing it -

"When ripe [the mango], the Apples of the Hesperides are but fables to them: for Taste, the Nectarine, Peach and Apricot fall short."

Babur, though, wasn't as rapturous over the great mango of the Indian sub-continent. He writes in the Baburnama - 

"Mangoes when good, are very good, but many as are eaten, few are first rate...taking it altogether, the mango is the best fruit of Hindustan. Some so praise it as to give it preference over all fruits except the musk-melon but, such praise outmatches it."   

Of course, Babur was more of a melon man.

India failed to impress him (other than for its wealth), for, amongst other reasons, its melons weren't good enough. He describes the melons of the cities he mentions in his autobiography,  he remembers Kabul and writes, "Recently a melon was brought, and as I cut it, I was oddly affected. I wept the whole time I was eating it.", and he judges towns by the quality of their melons - "Bukhara is a fine town; its fruits are many and good; its melons are excellent."

(On an aside, the plums of Bukhara are also praised by Babur - "The Bukhara plum is famous; no other equals it.", and in Punjabi, a plum is an 'Aloo Bukhara'. I wonder what the original Persian of Baburnama calls the "Bukhara plum".)

Me, I love my fruits, but as much as I love Babur and his lands of Central Asia, I'll take my Hindustani amb and leave his Fergana melons to him.

The Translation Conundrums.

Barking at the moon

On the rotting wharf that pilfering cur,
Pale yapping waif of a wharfinger,
Barks at the lonely moon:
The lonely at the lonelier.

O listen hard. By the wharf's stone wall
Where in the dark the water curls
To lap at land's ramshackledom,
There gloomy voices rise and fall,
Gloomy voices of yellow girls
Singing, singing of kingdom come.

Why must I hear such singing; why
Must I walk so ware of the world gone wry,
And why pale dog,
Unhappy dog, am I always I?

- Hagiwara Sakutaro
  translated by Graeme Wilson
  
I came across this poem in the December 1968 issue of Encounter, and I can never read it without reading it aloud. But this other translation is probably a more literal rendering of the poem:

Sad moonlit night

Drat that snatch-thief dog,
He howls at the moon from the rotting pier.
When the soul pricks up its ears,
It hears the shrill girls choiring,
Choiring
With their gloomy voices,
By the somber stone wall out at the pier.

Why is it always this way
with me?
Listen, you dog, you.
Tell me, you pale-blue, unhappy dog, you.

- Hagiwara Sakutaro

(I don't who the translator is for the second version.)

Graeme Wilson’s translations have been criticized, for taking "the creative role of the translator to the extreme, resulting in poems that only vaguely resemble Sakutarō’s originals" and I have no idea how much of Sakutaro am I reading and how much of Wilson. But then, I would never have come across Sakutaro at all if not for Graeme Wilson, and if I had come across the second version first, I wouldn't have been interested in reading more by or about Sakutaro. 

And Plato lives on in India...

How Plato became Aflatoon in Arabic and the languages east of Arabia is explained in this article, but what is equally fascinating is the fact that "Aflatoon" has taken on a life of its own.

Long before I knew about Plato, Aflatoon meant someone who was hyper, a jack-of-all-trades, someone very quick on the uptake - in my memory, it was used for a kid who couldn't really be controlled, but it wasn't a negative term - equally, it implied brilliance. My Punjabi-English dictionary sort of supports my understanding and says "a clever person".

A search of the internet (I don't have a Hindi or Urdu dictionary at home) though, throws up many more meanings, including:

• an epithet applied to a boaster, 
• a mischief-maker, though for Farrukh Dhondy in his childhood, it was the equivalent of Abracadabra, 
• something that is awesome, incredible, amazing or great,

and a series of meanings given by internet users -  a person who talks about improbable ideas, a conman or a criminal, carefree, naughty, mind-blowing.


But did he -













...really deserve this?

If you want to hear the complete song (6 minutes of what passed for Hindi music in the '90s), here it is.