Word: punkah
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Dickson's categories become increasingly funistradian. The section Punk, for example, lists 43 definitions of that word, and then goes on to define punkah, punkateero and punkatunk. Sexy Words includes cataglottism, ecdemolagnia, parnel, renifleur and stasivalence (don't ask). Under Curses, Dickson offers such arcana as feague, which a 1785 dictionary defined as "to put ginger up a horse's fundament, to make him lively and carry his tail well...
...hides -now find less messy jobs. Hide merchants from the cities are forced to send out trucks with their own men to do the dirty work. Higher up the caste ladder, India faces a servant problem even more perplexing than that in the West (TIME, July 9). The punkah wallahs of the past are no longer willing to turn the fans in stifling offices; they have been replaced by air conditioning. Most lower-caste Indians prefer jobs as office boys or chauffeurs...
...verdant Villa Jovis were said to have disappeared into the sea below. Perhaps the most famed second house of all is the exquisite Petit Trianon, begun by Louis XV for his mistress. Madame de Pompadour, and elaborated by Louis XVI's wife, Marie Antoinette. From the punkah-hung summer bungalows of Darjeeling to the marble "cottages" of 19th century Newport (where a four-bedroom, two-bath apartment has been fitted into what was once a dining room), most of the rich have had at least a second*#151;and often a third, fourth or fifth-house to live...
...bottles of Grand Chambertin '87, suites at Claridge's, brief trips aboard the Bremen, a little grouse shooting ... He is on all the first-night lists, Leon at L'Aperitif salutes him as 'Highness,' he is reputed to travel with his own linen sheets, punkah wavers, court chamberlains and sauce cooks...
Over his head waved a punkah, drawn by a white-clad woman disciple. About his body was a simple cotton loincloth, the thread of which was spun by his own hands. In one hand he held a rag, which he constantly dipped into a bowl of water by his side and wiped over his shiny bald head. About him followers and secretaries knelt crosslegged. Gandhi looked old as wisdom, skeleton-thin, sharp, birdlike; now all his teeth are gone. He seemed in remarkable spirits...
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