[Leica] WAY OFF TOPIC: pukka

["Stewart, Alistair" <AStewart@gigaweb.com>]

Well I spent the majority of my childhood and adolescence in England,
Scotland, and Africa, (English schools), and would offer to the American
English speaking LUGers a translation for what "Pukka" means in that
environment: the modern American equivalent is something like "the real
deal".

Pukka in English is not derogatory, but rather a compliment. Nor is it
"regional" use, unless you count the English (as opposed to American
English) speaking parts of the world as a region.

"Ah yes, America and England. Two nations divided by a common language."
Said by...?

Interestingly, one of the reasons English is today's Lingua Franca of
business, academia, etc., is the way in which foreign words have been
absorbed into the vocabulary, without messing around with rules for how they
are to be used. This in in depressing contrast to what is occurring in
American English, where rules are simplified to the point where they are
sufficiently non-specific enough to be confusing. The 'dumbing-down' of
America (and, regrettably, those parts of the world whose populations speak
American English). 

But let us not turn this into a nasty exchange about who is right/wrong
about the meaning of PUKKA. Maybe we could go and USE our Leicas instead.

Best of communication,

Alistair

- -----Original Message-----
From: Akhil Lal [mailto:alal@bcc.cuny.edu]
Sent: Monday, November 15, 1999 10:37 AM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: Re: [Leica] pukka (was NY Photo Expo: A talk with


Interesting regional usage. First time I've heard of
this. It does not have this meaning for me. 
Any other Lugers care to comment ? 
Regards,
Akhil 


leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us wrote:
> 
> Pukka is used in English (at least post-colonial Canadian English) to
denote
> something as authentic is a degrogatory fashion.  Calling something a
pukka
> Leica is not a complement.
> 
> There are many words in English that are not true English words but
through
> usage have attained "honorary status" as English.  Probably the most
obvious
> example of this is the word "gullable" which really isn't English at all
but
> is really Russian.  Don't believe me? Look it up!
> 
> Jonathan (Suffering from too much LTM) Lee
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Rabiner [mailto:mrabiner@concentric.net]
> Sent: Monday, November 15, 1999 6:38 AM
> To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
> Subject: Re: [Leica] pukka (was NY Photo Expo: A talk with Leica
> 
> Christer Almqvist wrote:
> >
> > >BTW, forgive my ignorance, but what is a pukka Leica?
> > >
> > >Francesco Sanfilippo,
> >
> > pukka is Hindi and means cooked, ripe, solid, and also genuine,
authentic,
> > first-class or complete. Pukka was the second word I had to look up
today
> > when reading the mail from the LUG. Corrobate was the other. I wish the
> > contributors would all use basic English only, or otherwise provide
> > explanations or alternatively give translations into Swedish.
> 
> Corrobate no in my dictionaries. Is that Hindi as well? :)
> Mark Rabiner