KHARKI OR KHAKI.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVIII, Issue 2, 11 January 1900, Page 3

KHARKI OR KHAKI.

It is a pity (says the Tablet) that Mr. Rudyard Kipling, in hia famous ' Absent-minded Beggar,' which is just now having such an unprecedented vogue, should have perpetuated the vulgar solecism of writing 'kharki,' which represents exactly the same mispronunciation as that of the Cockney who talks of the ' drawnng ' room. The word itself is the common Persian adjective ' khaki ' (with long Italian a), meaning « dusty, dust-coloured,' from the ordinary ' khak,' signifying dust, or earth, as used, for instance, in the third chapter of Genesis.