8 COCOA 



may be thinking you will find it quite easy to under- 

 stand and make yourselves understood by the West 

 African native, seeing that you already knew the 

 meaning of that word "boy" before I explained 

 the same for the benefit of those of our friends who 

 have not had so many opportunities of travel. Wait 

 small, my learned friends, and you will find out for 

 yourselves that West Coast pigeon-English or, as it is 

 sometimes called " trade English " differs widely from 

 any other desecration of your language you have ever 

 heard. 



Meanwhile, I expect you would all be glad if I would 

 translate some of the expressions I have already 

 used. 



" Savvy," of course, most of you recognised at once 

 as the equivalent of "know" or "understand." 



"Wait small" means "wait a minute." If you 

 tell your steward-boy or your motor-boy to " wait 

 small," there is just the ghost of a chance, if he knows 

 any English at all, that he will stay where he is at the 

 time you give him the order until you call him again. 

 But if you bid him " wait a minute," he will probably 

 go off and fetch you a bottle of soda-water, or take 

 the car to some place where he has happened to drive 

 you any time during the last year or so, pull up there, 

 and go to sleep till somehow or other you manage 

 to find him. 



" Brothers " are not the near relations we under- 

 stand by the word, but simply members of the same 

 tribe. 



"Palaver" may mean "talk" or "work." A 

 conversation between two people is a palaver, so also 

 is a deputation to the Governor or a wordy battle 

 in the Courts; and in the opinion of most black men 



