THE DICTIONARY OF EFATE. 9 



would have cast into a parenthesis that word "column" in explica- 

 tion or suggestion of an explication of the sense of calf? That 

 offensive and offending parenthesis was not set into the definition 

 innocently. 



alo, to swim (wave hands). 



The parenthesis is expressly for the purpose of linking it with the 

 verb alo-fi, which I have already cited for its clumsiness of definition. 



bare, to be dirty-looking, like a sightless eye (of half-raw food) ; Hebrew 'avar, 



Ethiopic 'awir, to be blind. 

 bwes, besii, a young pig whose mother is dead and which is brought up as a pet 



and is therefore tame and gentle; also a motherless child, so called from 



being deprived of the mother's milk and, as it were, arid; Arabic yabisa, to 



be dry. 



The same leering argument will appear in the study of ngoko (95), 

 where he introduces hack in definition of Hebrew hakah. If his use 

 of italics has any meaning at all it must be intended to mark his 

 obiter dictum that the name of the Teutonic ax is Semitic. And 

 this in a work of polemical philology! 



Such childish efforts to misdirect the comprehension arouse 

 repugnance ; they cast upon the whole work a suspicion which really 

 it does not deserve. The result of such discoveries of obliquity is 

 that one loses confidence in each uncorroborated point in the book. 

 To many students it will render the work valueless. Yet so far as 

 my acquaintance with the speech of Efate extends, reinforced by a 

 considerable familiarity with other tongues of Melanesia and of 

 Polynesia, I have no hesitation in repeating my former statement 

 that this is far and away the most valuable contribution to our 

 knowledge of the speech of the Western Pacific. 



It is not only when Dr. Macdonald espies the chance to lug in his 

 Semitic theory that he takes unwarranted liberties. He etymol- 

 ogizes generalities on materials which do not reach beyond the two 

 entrances to Havannah Harbor. 



binauta, to be numb, devoid of feeling, as one's limb from stoppage of circulation 

 of the blood in it : bi, to be, nata, a person (as if the limb belonged to some 

 other person). 



bitua na, the knee, prob. bau, the head, and tua, leg. 



kuruku, the ankle is so called because the leg gathers itself, as it were, into the 

 knob of the joint. 



To these three add tere, as presented a little earlier. It is quite 

 fortuitous that no less than four glaring errors have to do with the 

 leg; one can but wonder how it has come about that Dr. Macdonald 's 

 legs have proved such unruly members. 



Yet another grave fault vitiates this dictionary as speech record. 

 The author supplies a copious store of variant forms for many words, 

 each ticketed with the simple notation of "d.," meaning dialectic. 

 Nowhere is any hint afforded us of the habitat of such dialects. 



