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Let's Take Hongkong's Word
By R. W. Thompson ·
* NGẢN THIK: A cheque in Hongkong Cantonese. The second element is "borrowed" from the English word cheque, NING MUNG: Lemon, in Hongkong Cantonose, "borrowed" from English as 1s lychee from Cantonese, Initial 1- and n- are in- terchangeable in many Chinese dialecta.
NULLAH: A stream, water-course (often man-made). This is an other of the Anglo-Indian words which have become ac climatised in the English used in Hongkong. It is the Hindi mala, brook. The Oxford Dictionary notes that it occurs in Halhed, Code Gentoo Laws 52, 1776: When the water fails in all the Nubahs, in the Lite of Sir C. Napier, ii, p.310, 1843, the author objects to the use of loan-words such as this.... our march tardy because of the nullaba, Watercourses is the xight name but we get here a slip-slop way of writing quite contemptible.
NUMBER ONE: Very good, first class, elc. Pidgin English seems to
have Imitated the Cantonese construction. Later it was bor rowed back into Cantonese og nam na wan. This reminds me of the French fleurter which became flirt in English and re- turned to France as Birter, The Pidgin word was also written numpa one, lumber one, etc. Giles récords the phrase Dat len belonger numba one, that tea is best. He also mentions that a Chinese servant, being asked if a certain person lived in the house, replied, Hab got top-side that numpa one ugly Ear- shee lawyer, all-same so-fashion, "accompanying the descrip- tion with a significant grimace," OKRA: The vegetable pod if(biscus esculentus. Its name vorles throughout the English-speaking world. It is the gumbo of parts of the United States of America and the West Indies. OH TA: Order, Another loan from English In Hongkong Contonese. It la presumably as necessary as amah, shroff and coulle in the English spoken in Hongkong.
ON 8Z; Ounce, in Ilongkong Cantonese; a necessary loan perhaps, Elace the sunce was not a traditional Chinese weight. English borrowed catty from Malayan indirectly through Indo- Portuguese for similar reasons.
OSS01 08OTY!: Be quick! Make haste! Listed by Leland, I should be grateful for information on these words from those readers who correspond with me on words published in this column. PADDY: Rice In the husk. This word is well-known to most Eng- High-speakers, it occurs so often alone and in compounds (paddy-Acids, paddy-bird) in local conversation that I felt that readers might be interested to know that it is of Malayan origin.
PAKKA: Genuine, proper. This word is well known in modem colloquiai English, especially among British army officers. Giles seems to have thought it odd when he records it for Anglo-Chinese at the end of the last century. It was general
11
THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1958.
"The MCC sacking Wardle for saying rude things is one thing-sacking the Vicar for calling us a bunch of incompetent silly mid-ons in his Parish Magazine is another."
SECRET AGENT
"Impossible!" War Office Scoffed
WHEN HE REVEALED GERMAN'S ORDER OF BATTLE
MEN and women become spies for various
reasons-love of country; lust for money; By- craving for imagined power; and, very occasional. ly, for love of adventure,
la Anglo-Indian and is the Hindi ripe, cocked, genuine, proper.
I was love of country and ing. And he knew all the gossip According to Giles the opposite cutela was never used hatred of oppression that made of Whitehall. China. It was however once fashionable in these parts to "y" become a spy, but he was apeak of a pakka pony or a pakka fool,
in one respect unique, PAMPANO: This fish is Trachnotus blochii to the zoologist and Wong Jap Ch'our (yellow wax pomtrei) to local fishermen. Herklots and Lin say it's worth eating all the year round. PAPAYA: This fruit like its name comes from the Greater Antilles.
In other English-speaking areas--it la called pawpaw. P'A T'I Party in local Cantonese. English borrowed mikado from Japanese and cheung shasm from Cantonese in the same way. PA SZ: Bus. This loan from English is even written up in Chinese
characters at Hongkong bus-stops,
word
Lt.-Colonel John Baker White
In 1945, he read the files the Gestapo had built up on him, would be the victim of an un- the Dusseldorf fortunate "accident in the field, He had no chiet. No govern. The one from ment over gave him an order. office had a photograph of him He would return home feet-irst
moustache.
The. with full military honours and a No government ever paid him without his
wreath from the Third for his information. He was his other, frem Karlhorst, had one go
The Reich. own boss, with his own team of him with his moustache. of men and women, volunteers accompanying descriptions were But both dedicated to Aghting-from the materially different, Insidefirst Communism, then contained the sentence, "A very Nazism and Fascism, then Com- dangerous man." murdsin again.
P'A 82: A convenient loan for 'pass', Used In Hongkeng Cantonese. PAT LANN TEI: Another loan. It is the local Cantonese
for Brandy. PAY: In Pidgin this word often means give, bring, deliver or
transfer. My pay he is 'I give him.' PEACOCK: An old word meaning to call on ladies' ("as implying | inside.”
a more elegant costume than usual"-Glies) It was brought to China from India where I was much used. PICUL: "A man's load" or 100 catties or 133-1/3 lbs, avoirdupois..
In Parkett's version of Mexloza's History of China, the phrase one' pyco of rice appears.
PIDGIN: An old world belleved to be the English word business in disguise. Some have attempted to derive it from Portuguese ocupadão. It appears in well-known compounds such as joss- pligin, religion, superstition; chow-chow-pidgin, eating, cook- Ing; larn-pidgin, love-pidgin, clɛ, Sham und humbug are play- pidgin. Gilles quales an item from the Hongkong Dally Press of 4th Oct, 1877 which records that "a'second man hud to be Hogy and a different officer had to him. This second officer's physique was not by any means equal to that of the first, and the blows came down with far less force. He was consequently voled not up to his pidgin,”
26
A British Crossword Puzzle
12
ACBOSS
3 Hanger-on (8).
6 Was abusive (6).
22.
D Docs he give the latest news
about stout? (8).
'11 Yost mums for melodies (8),
12 In the near future (4).
18 Born in South Africa (5).
18 Domius çolvur (8).
1) Dotail (4).
22 Impoverished (8).
24 Strict observer among Jews
(a).
20 Alm high-at a sleeple? (0), 28 To be found in theatres and
kitchens (3);
₤25
16
DOWN
1 Nautical curming? (5).
2 High hat joint (5),
3. Reading (7).
4 Port overseas (4).
5 Biblical name (4).
Sing In Harmony (0),
7 Wandering like a knight?
(0);
10 This calls for some footworks
(B).
14 Cal-walk? (5):
16 Bounty (a big ship, too) (7). 16.Clear as a alteam?" (0),
17 Chaps grow old here, ob-
viouly (0)
20 Weight In wood (8). ·
'21 No work for him (5).
22 Plecca for horses (4), ***
23 Engine tackle? (4)
And there was to noNBERSE about thetr being " the
Three were members of Com- unist Pariles, Two belonged to the Nazi Party; two others to pro-Nazi organisations in Bri- fain; another to Mosley's Black- shirts, Another was inside the sinister Cagoulards, the "hooded men" organisation in France.
"
himself was, at the same time, a member of a Communist "front organisation and Direc- tor of Intelligence of the first Fuscist movement in Britain.
He
Was
"
SAW REHEARSAL
But the gumble paid off. spent a month on the staff of the Fourth Army. at Leipzig, and watched General von Reichhau rehearse the invasion of Czecho- slovakla..
From 1933 to 1938, helped by the Section D members who be longed to the anti-Nazi Freedon Front as well as to the Nazi Party. "X" bullt up the picture of Hitler's political machine and
When he got home ha pre- German rearmament, as well as of the growing Fifth Column in sented a fall report to the War Britain, AL the same time he Office, including detalls of four continued to operate inside the weapons he had seen. A network of international Com- samal young officer dimissed them in a half-senteren: ""Prob. munism.
ably mock-up's, old boy
In 1934, he had several shatp reminders that he was up against the Soviet Secret Pollee the ruthless Ogpu.
•
BY ROADSIDE
When was posted to the War Offlee in 1910 on technical Intelligence, be tried to find the 50 or more long reports he had sent in on German weapons and formations. There was no trace of them.
Some months Inter, despairing of official reaction, he gave the press the inside story of the Nazi Fifth Column in Britain, It created something of a sensa
Questions were asked in Parliament,
Before forming what
Early one morning one of the known as "Section D," he oldest members of Section D was carried on
war found dead by the side of the 4 onc-man against Communism.
dis- Newcastle-to-York Toad, the covered the secret printing plant mangled remains of his motor.
on top of him. Two lion. used for producing the illegal cycle paper The Soldier's Volce," and months later, another member of pin-pointed its distributors. He the section died in abnost reported to the authorities. exactly the same way on the
London-Oxford road.
•
In both
Two Germans left for hone in a hurry, of their own accord.. Later, the paper ceased
and two more on a Home Office publication and an N.C.O. In brought in a verdict of accidental not smashed, but its head had cases the coroner order, The Fifth Column was the Royal Corps of Signals at death, "X" had different ideas, been cut off. Aldershot lott the Army in a but ng proof.
hurry,
SECRET SERVICE.
In the summer of that year D 34 was poisoned in Frankfurt, and had to spend three months. In hospital.
***
While he was
ESCAPED GESTAPO
In May 1938 the Gestapo struck back.
With his wife “X," the gentie
Still feeling his way, "HOT M went to Germany. and studied Just before Christmas, the Communist Party there, was in Paris, especially the working of the waiting in the evening rush hour man farmer, went to Germany the Hotel Litetin in at the invitation of the Nazi underground carrier system. He outside
went on writing reports, and Montparnasse, someone tried to Minister of Agriculture, Darre,
Battle started to recruit Section D. One push him under a bus.
of a first members was a sidited was Joined, engineer and ma ex-boxer, an- In 1934, "X" realised he must other an engine-driver, a third do something to get nearer to the a young actress,
top of the Nazi movement. Бо
Then one day "X" was asked he started writing, articles and to visit an office in the Adelphi, giving lectures about the new Germany. They were objective,
off London's Strand, and he was but had always a slight pro- surprised to discover how much the Brillsh Secret Service knew Nazi slant. about bira.
They offered him a job. He
refused, replying "I'm batter on" The
my own." Soon afterwards he got married,
A CUEST
Reloh Propaganda Ministry Ash took the fly and "X" was invited by them to tour Germany as a guest of the government.
A little later he made another discovery: His wife persuaded him to grow a moustache, and then he found that by shaving it Ribbentrop welcomed him to off, and changing his clothes, he the Embassy in London; his could aller his appearance very social attache and accomplished materially. From then on, ho political epy, Flizzandolph, wined cultivated a dual personality. was an honoured guest at and dined him. With his wife
Blue-eyed, of medium height the and build, marked only by his Numbery,
1980 Nazi Congress
at
powerful shoulders-a legacy of All the Ume he was building, his boxlog-booth fighting day up, the picture of the Nazi ho became the clean-shaven, ruddy-faced country gentleman machine, and of the Fifth touring, Europe with his good: Column in Britain. looking wife.
to inspect Some experimental' farms. He also intended to con- tact the two German members of Section D.
D 29 kept his appointment and handed over a vital report on the Cerman Order of Hafile. Weinhaus Lenun la Dusseldorf But when "X" went to the
to meet D 41, he saw that the building was under observation.
The trap was set; but "X" did not walk into it: He drove back to hip hotel, and told his wife nway, to pack. As they drove two car-loads of Gestapo men dew up at the hotel entrance. They got across the frontier into Luxembourg with two hours to. spare.
A week later the ashes of D 41- were delivered to his widow. by the Gestapo.
When "X" handed in the Order of Battle at
the Wor Office, he was told, "This is ime the arms." porsible. They just haven't got
# did not go to Germany again. When war cáme ho sérveď fish with him 'regimit, in Kent unii framfered: "10~Iniqi-
In 1937, as a Territorial officer, ha made an 'official application ligence. The dhembers of Section. Alternatively with moustache, to do an attachment to the Ger D fallowed their own roads of black hat, arid Immaculate Lon- man Army, It was granted), serviço, and shUT don clothes, he could look kò “knew he was, taking b ́enly Men
FRIDAY'S CROSSWORD, – Astows: 3 Fresh Alf, 7 Inure, 8 Vestment, 10 Chisel, 18 Securer, 18 Lisa, 17 Valiant, 18 Cabaret, 20 Oner, 21 Nibbles, 20 Resort, 27 Articles, 20 Tribe, 29 Dizygnons. Down: 1 Place, Music, 3 Fever, 4 Sole, a Guarda officer in murid or a. culated," risk. It the Gestapolis | After the svar, ihsone who were Am-Ella, 6 Rat-tnt, Eleven, 11 He-man, 12 Sugar, 14 Balire, Foreign Office official. A country caught up with him or the left met in London, wed couma TNI 15 Limbs, 10 Sneez, 18 Coward, 10 Beaton, 22 Bests, 23 Louleman bort is bred, be could - Abwehr realised the real pirpose, the prics: Die Fulled on WLO 24 Strew: 25 Ache,
talk of country affairs and farm of his visit, the British winter road from Boure to Lçon, fight-
ing with the Resistance; D.11 lost on a Murmanske convoy; D.
shot by a Spanish border patrol geiting escaped prisoners. af-war through the Pyrennices; D.21 crippled for life by Gestapo torture; D.30 killed in Essen by a British, bomb. :..
But Section D did not die. It lives today for another purpose.
As "X' told his son not long ago, "Once you're in the game, you're in for good."
!
"I know "X" better than any one, except, perhaps his wife.
I see him every morning- when I peer into the looking- plus to brush what is left of my hair.
(All Rights Reserved)
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