Graeme Diamond, principal editor of the OED, in today's Independent: "Wiki joins a small but distinguished group of words which are directly or ultimately borrowings into English from Hawaiian."
3 comments:
Anonymous
said...
I had always thought Tiki was Hawaiian, but it's Maori. Tell us Jon, what are t'others? C
If we attend a luau some evening on Waikiki & watch lei-bedecked hula dancers & muumuu-begowned matrons swaying to the gentle strains of the Big Kahuna's ukelele, we might find out wikiwiki about some of those highly distinguished words.
Btw, Hawaii's state fish is the rectangular triggerfish, known locally as "humuhumunukunukuapuaa", a word which to my thoroughly undruid ears has more than a passing resemblance to the lilting cadences of that lovely language still spoken natively in some parts of Cymru.
3 comments:
I had always thought Tiki was Hawaiian, but it's Maori. Tell us Jon, what are t'others?
C
Luau? Hula?
If we attend a luau some evening on Waikiki & watch lei-bedecked hula dancers & muumuu-begowned matrons swaying to the gentle strains of the Big Kahuna's ukelele, we might find out wikiwiki about some of those highly distinguished words.
Btw, Hawaii's state fish is the rectangular triggerfish, known locally as "humuhumunukunukuapuaa", a word which to my thoroughly undruid ears has more than a passing resemblance to the lilting cadences of that lovely language still spoken natively in some parts of Cymru.
Aloha
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