Pidgin Terms

Letter to the Editor I WAS interested and intrigued to read that Pidgin is now becoming so re spectable that an analytical grammar and text-book is being published in America.

Can you inform me how the much-used phrase, “ ’e pukkarup finish” is defined?

Also, what the phrase book gives as a suitable answer to a native who uses the phrase when stating the condition of, say, a crankshaft which he has ruined owing to lack of oil?

No doubt many others of your Island readers could suggest similar pregnant queries?

I am, etc.,

Arthur Wyborn.

Ashfield. Sydney, 25/6/43.

Editorial Note:—The answer to the second question would presumably demand the use of words which would be of use in answering the first.