Words and Phrases.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20280, 14 April 1934, Page 8

Words and Phrases.

asks whether the word pow wow is a “ proper name or just slang.” It is a good name borrowed from the American Indian, with whom it stood for a priest or conjuror. As the conjuration was attended with great noise and confusion, and often with feasting, dancing, and so on, on the eve of a hunting expedition or war, the word has come to mean a noisy, disorderly meeting. A pow wow was more like an Australian corroborree than a Maori korero, for the korero was a council, if a very talkative one. “ Touchstone ” noted the word colloquium somewhere the other day. It is a good name for something less formal than a conference. Dean Trench, in his 44 Study of Words,” tells how he once asked a class of schoolchildren whether a newspaper report that a white blackbird had been shot was correctly worded: — “ The less thoughtful members of the class,” he said, “ instantly pronounced against it; while after a little consideration, two or three perceived and replied that it was perfectly correct, that, while no doubt the bird had originally obtained this name from its blackness, yet 4 blackbird * was now the name of a species, and one so cleaving to it as net to be forfeited, even when the blackness had quite disappeared.” TOUCHSTONE.