Tok arere

BURTON John john.burton at tsra.gov.au
Mon Sep 30 09:11:09 EST 2002


Tok arere is fine but I would use it to mean "off topic", which you now also
hear in meetings. 
 
(For example, if attendees are constrained to stay to the agenda points
("azenda poin" / "agenda point") and one strays off track and goes on about
a personal issue, you may get interruptions to the chair: "off point, Mr
Chairman!"
 
Another related way to say someone is dodging an issue is to use "saitim":
 
Yu askim em stret?
Yes, mi askim em.
Em i tok wanem?
Em in no tokaut klia, em i saitim tasol.
 
Did you ask him straight out?
Yes I asked him.
What did he say?
He didn't give a direct answer, he dodged the issue.
 
Mi tru o giaman?
John Burton

-----Original Message-----
From: Thomas H. Slone [mailto:THSlone at yahoo.com]
Sent: Saturday, 28 September 2002 10:57 AM
To: Multiple recipients of list
Subject: Tok arere


Welsch & Terrell (p. 396) report that "tok arere" is a synonym for "tok
bokis".  Has anyone heard of this before?  I think that tok bokis must be
the more common term.

Welsch, Robert L. & Terrell, John (1994). Reply to Moore and Romney.
American Anthropologist 96: 392-396.
-- 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/private/mihalic/attachments/20020930/9d35de4b/attachment.htm


More information about the Mihalic mailing list