OUR MOTHER TONGUE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23858, 12 July 1939, Page 17

OUR MOTHER TONGUE

RANDOM NOTES I am willing to admit that the average Maori has a pleasanter speaking voice than the average white New Zealander, and that the educated Maori is guilty of fewer mispronunciations and vulgarisms, when speaking English, than the average white speaker; but I cannot agree with a correspondent who maintains that a Maori understands the meaning of the words “ yes ” and “no" while the Englishman does not. “ You Don’t Know? ” The critic supports his contention by telling a story about a Maori launchman, the gist of which is that when an intending passenger says to him, “ You won’t go without me? ” the Maori answers “yes” when a white man would have answered “no.” It is contended, that the Maori’s way > of answering is the only correct one, when the question is made as a statement in the negative form. My correspondent has, 1 think, lost sight of the fact that both the question and the answer are elliptic—something is “ understood.” When a question is put in this form, as a statement, the interrogative force is given by the intonation of the voice; the full question really is, “You won’t go without me, will you? ”, and the full answer, “ No, I won’t.” If the critic is right, the Maori’s full answer would be, “ Yep, I won’t,” which is not, of course, correct under any circumstances. So I must decide that in spite of this ingenious argument English speakers, “ highly educated from judges to primer schoolboys,” as my friend puls it, do know what “ yes ” and “ no ” mean. “ Humanely Possible ” A correspondent was promised by a friend that he would meet him if it were “humanely possible," and when the word “ humanely,” stressed on “ mane,” was challenged, defended himself and adduced the evidence of two dictionaries. Now I am asked for my opinion. I suppose that if the lexicographer quoted very old examples of this idiom in' the original spelling he might give the impression that “ humanely ” is here correct, otherwise surely not. The phrase is an old one, “ humanly ” being defined to mean in it “ within the range of human experience or power,” and there are examples of it dating from the sixteenth century. Addison, about 1712, uses “ humanly speaking ” as we still do. But in older times the word was spelt with or without the “ e ” in all meanings, and it was not until about two hundred years ago that the two spellings were assigned clearly to two differ-

ent meanings, and that the form ending in “ e ” was pronounced with stress on the second syllable. Gradually during the eighteenth century “humane” was restricted to the meanings of “kindly,” “sympathetic," etc., and when the Royal Humane Society was established in 1774, the two were perfectly differentiated in both form an<|, pronunciation. But in our days it would be absurd to use “humanely possible” in the ordinary sense of the phrase. “ Humanly ” is the only correct form, and it must be a very queer dictionary which would decree otherwise. “ Irish Grass ” A recent note gave the pronunciation and origin of “ paspalum now I have the question of another kind of grass which is well-known throughout New Zealand, “ florin." also called “ red-top ” (Agrosais stolonifera). In this country the name is pronounced as “ fee-orin " stressed on “ fee.” But in England it is pronounced just like “ firing" without the g, the New Zealander evincing his usual passion for the Maori and Latin sound of long “ i. ’ The word is, in English, well over a hundred years old, and represents the Celtic Irish word “fiorthan,” meaning “long coarse grass.” This is one of the very few words which have entered into standard English from this source. Any more doubtful Grasses? “ Dickin ” and “ Duck-shoving ” 1 am asked whether I can give any information about the term “Dickin,” which is used as a reply to some very improbable statement. All I can find out about this colloquial flower is that it is Australian, probably not older than the present century,, and that it originates from “the dickens,” at any rate that is the only suggestion which the invaluable Partridge can make. That “ explanation ” does not at all satisfy me, but I have no other to offer. The same inquirer is puzzled by “duckshover,” and would like information about it, too. There seems to be no doubt that this term originated in Melbourne about 1870. It was a cabmen’s term for one who broke the rank and unfairly touted for custom, which was regarded as an “ unprofessional trick.” An example of it quoted by Morris shows that it was in use in New Zealand in 1896. During the Great War it came to be used for one who evaded duty. No explanation is offered of the origin of the word, and one can only conjecture that it meant something very nasty; in fact, one may make a guess. But a full elucidation would probably be quite unsuited to the chaste columns of the Otago Daily Times. “ Jno ” Again 1 am once more asked why the abbreviated form of John is Jno, and I am once more obliged to say that I do not know. As I have said on a previous occasion, the experts whom I have consulted confess

themselves beaten by it. No known form of John in any language ends • in o, so we are left guessing. However, as I do not like to disappoint ! a perfectly good correspondent, I will have a shot, carefully safeguarding my reputation, if any, by saying that it is only a shot. In old writings the letter n, when it came at the end of a word, was written with the final stroke turned high up above the line of writing and curled up at the tip so as to produce something very like a small o. I have, for instance, a manuscript copy of an old charter made in 1598, in London, in which the word “ffoundation ” ends in this way, the pen having also travelled on without a break to form the o which begins the next word, so that the n, thus embellished. looks rather like a sketch of a dog seen from the side with his tail held high up and prettily culled at the tip. If final n’s were regularly formed in this way the habit of making this conventional flourish may have misled later writers into the form Jno. At some future date I may be able to say how this explanation strikes an expert who has better opportunity than I have to make certain researches. This is, of course, a trifling matter, but I would rather spend my time and energy on a small problem of this kind than count up the number of adjectives which end “ -dous ” as I have recently been invited to do.