PITFALLS OF THE VOCABULIST. 49 
Samoa; first must come the right to rule, then follows the title. The 
right inheres in the possession of four names of might conferred after 
a rather complicated system based on traditional custom which in 
another connection I shall have to present at length. Here it suffices 
briefly to say that one petty village community has the right to confer— 
and to withdraw—the name of Tui-Atua and with it the right to rulethe 
district of Atua and its family dependencies; another has the right to 
confer the name of Tui-‘A‘ana, yet others the names of Tamasoali‘i and 
Natoaitele respectively. In each case the right to withdraw accompa- 
nies the right to confer. Who holds all four names is the ruler of all 
Samoa, its tupu, for the period of possession of the four names as much 
a king as the Samoans can imagine, but always subject to inopportune 
subtraction. And because the high plenipotentiaries translated their 
king and konzg with all the connotation of right divine and constitu- 
tional checks into this temporary and amorphous tupu of the South 
Sea, Samoa knew no peace; first one and then another of the royal 
names was retracted and war followed. 
We may find the same sort of thing much nearerhome. Popularly 
it is supposed that we speak the same language in America and in parts 
of Great Britain; when hands are across the sea we try to glow with 
after-dinner satisfaction that our mother tongue is our common heri- 
tage. But when it comes to the usufruct we are not without evidence 
that need exists for true translation. From John S. Farmer’s Ameri- 
canisms, Old and New I extract this instance: 
Jag. A slang term for an umbrella, possibly from the article being so 
constantly carried. 
He came in very late (after an unsuccessful effort to unlock the front door with his 
umbrella) through an unfastened coal hole in the sidewalk. Coming to himself toward 
daylight, he found himself—spring overcoat, silk hat, jag and all—stretched out in the 
bath tub.—Albany Journal, 1888. 
Yet another and later recorder, J. Redding Ware, in Passing Eng- 
lish of the Victortan Era, clearly stands without the interpreter’s house: 
Yaller dog (American). Yellow is the tint of most dogs in America; 
hence it is the most searching term of ordinary contempt. 
If there can be such pitfalls in a speech supposedly common, think 
what must be awaiting the men who make the first record of newly dis- 
covered tongues. One such error has become classic in all the lan- 
guages of civilization; its error has almost faded from memory; our 
most recent authorities now essay to believe that it was no error at all. 
When Captain Cook discovered the coast of Australia at the spot 
where now stands a thriving city bearing his name, his naturalist, later 
to become the great Sir Joseph Banks of the Royal Society, was at once 
attracted by the great marsupials hopping over the landscape. ‘The 
conditions were ideal for error. Just that day discovered, the aborigi- 
nes knew no English, Banks had not a word of the Australian speech, 
