Amitav Ghosh - Sea of Poppies

[2]It needs here to be explained that the word Glossary, whenever it occurs in the Chrestomathy , is a reference to an authority that was, for Neel's purposes, one of the few to be empowered with the right to award certificates of migration into English: to wit, Sir Henry Yule and A. C. Burnell's Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive . Neel appears to have acquired a copy of this famous dictionary when it first began to circulate among a privileged few, in the 1880s, before it came to be known by the name Hobson-Jobson . Although his personal copy has never been found, there can be no doubt that the frequent references to 'Sir Henry' in the Chrestomathy are directed always towards Sir Henry Yule – just as 'the Glossary,' in his usage, stands always for the dictionary for which that great lexicographer was chiefly responsible.

[3]The name Roebuck, when it occurs in the

[4]The phrase Barney-Book, when it occurs in the Chrestomathy , is always in reference to Albert Barrère and Charles Leland's Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant , which was yet another of Neel's girmit-granting authorities. He possessed a well-worn copy of the edition published by the Ballantyne Press in 1889. His choice of shorthand for this work appears to be a reference to Barrère and Leland's tracing of barney to the gypsy word for 'mob' or 'crowd'. This in turn, they adduced to be, in one of those wild leaps of speculation for which they were justly famous, a derivation from the Hind. bharna – 'to fill' or 'increase'.

[5]The reference here is to Admiral W. H. Smyth's Sailor's Word-Book . Neel possessed several copies of the edition that was printed in London in 1876 by Blackie. He held this work in a respect that verged on reverence and when the words 'the Admiral' appear in the Chrestomathy , reference is always to Admiral Smyth and his famous lexicon.

[6]'The Linkister', when it appears in the Chrestomathy , is always in reference to Charles Leland and his Pidgin English Sing-Song: Or Songs and Stories in the China-English Dialect; with a Vocabulary . Charles Leland was, of course, one of the most prodigious lexicographers of the nineteenth century and he was another of Neel's girmit-granting authorities. But being himself a master of the South China Pidgin, Neel appears to have disapproved, or disagreed, with it in some respects: hence the somewhat disparaging name.