I was reading a British newspaper article talking about foreign languages that compress a lot of meaning into a few words, and found that they were using a number of Hawaiian phrases in their examples. Hey all you folks out there who are fluent in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, do these definitions make sense to you? Or is the guy who wrote this book, where the examples are taken from, missing the mark?
PANA PO'O
To scratch your head in order to help you to remember something you've forgotten.
O KA LA NOKONOKO
A day spent in nervous anticipation of a coughing spell.
AKA'AKA'A
Skin peeling or falling off after either sunburn or heavy drinking.
KUALANAPUHI
An officer who keeps the flies off the sleeping king by waving a feather brush.
LOMILOMI
The chief's masseur, whose duty it was to take care of his spittle and excrement.
'A'AMA
Someone who speaks rapidly, hiding their meaning from one person while communicating it to another.
Extracted from 'The Meaning of Tingo' by Adam Jacot de Boinod.
To scratch your head in order to help you to remember something you've forgotten.
O KA LA NOKONOKO
A day spent in nervous anticipation of a coughing spell.
AKA'AKA'A
Skin peeling or falling off after either sunburn or heavy drinking.
KUALANAPUHI
An officer who keeps the flies off the sleeping king by waving a feather brush.
LOMILOMI
The chief's masseur, whose duty it was to take care of his spittle and excrement.
'A'AMA
Someone who speaks rapidly, hiding their meaning from one person while communicating it to another.
Extracted from 'The Meaning of Tingo' by Adam Jacot de Boinod.
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