________________
SEPTEMBER, 1914.]
MISCELLANEA
=
MISCELLANEA.
"SHANDY" AND "SHINDY"
1. MOFUSSIL residents in Madras know from experience the weekly market at which provisions are purchased for the next week, and which is termed sandai. At Ootacamund it lasts till night and winds up with the merry songs of the inebriated Bajagas who are returning to their distant haunts. The word sandai is the Tamil form of Sanskrit sandhd, while sandi and sandu are derived from sadhi. I have noted. the Anglo-Indian form shandy Tamil sandai in the following amusing extract from the "Madras Mail" of May 1890, which professes to be a reply to a query that had been inserted by the then Collector of Kurnool
RABBITS AND GOVERNMENT.
Sir."To keep rabbits on the plains, " send your boy to the local shandy for some string, adjust it in loops and pass them over the heads of the rabbits, draw up and fasten to the legs of a four poster bedstead. This is a most effectual way of keeping rabbits on the plains, and prevent them wandering to the hills. Can Mr. Kough kindly tell a fellow countryman the best means of keeping Government on the plains, especially in April And May. "
Erin-Go-Bragh.
2. In the Slang Dictionary (1874) the word shindy is explained by a row, or noise. I have found the following instances of its use.
(a) In chapter 36 of Thackeray's Pendennis (1845-50) the Major's valet Morgan remarks with reference to the French chef Mirobalant :
THE PURANA TEXT OF THE DYNASTIES OF THE KALI AGE WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES edited by F. E. PARGITER. Humphrey Milford. Oxford University Press. 1913. XXIV, 97 pp. 5 sh.
The genealogy of old dynasties is one of the traditional topics of the Purâpes, and the lists of Encient rulers contained in them were at an early date considered as authentic by the Brahmanas. When the later dynasties started the practice of deriving their genealogies from the ancient kings of India, these lists were largely made use of,
195
At a ball at Baymouth, sir, bless his impudence, he challenged Mr. Harthur to fight a jewel, sir, which Mr. Harthur was very near knocking him down, and pitchin' him out a winder, and serve him right; but Chevalier Strong, sir, came up and stopped the shindy-I beg pardon, the holtercation, sir."
(b) Flügel's Dictionary, 4th ed., (1891). "Did you and she have a shindy downstairs." "She hated me as much as I did her, we used to have fearful shindies."
(c) Wright's English Dialect Dictionary (1905) "There did use to be some shandies [thus] a Plough Monday" (from Nottinghamshire).
That part of the great Oxford Dictionary which will contain the article shindy' is not yet out. The Concise Oxford Dictionary (1911) says:
BOOK NOTICE.
"shindy, brawl, disturbance, row, noise; often to kick up a shindy;' perhaps from Scotch shinny or shinty, a kind of hockey."
The derivation suggested here is extremely doubtful, I suspect that shindy was originally a British soldier's expression and goes back to its synonym sandai, a word which every master and mistress of Tamil servants cannot help being familiar with. I remember to have heard frequently the phrase sandai- ppôdugirán, he is kicking up a row. Perhaps some of your correspondents will be able to trace the word shindy in Anglo-Indian literature. Both shandy and shindy are missing in HobsonJobson.
E. HULTZSCH,
and we can frequently trace their influence in inscriptions. No critical scholar would think of considering them as authenticated history. On the other hand, they are not merely poetical fictions, and critical scholars like Sir R. G. Bhandarkar have shown to what extent they can be utilised in reconstructing the ancient history of India.
One great difficulty, in making use of these lists, has hitherto been that they have had to be consulted in so many different works, and that these latter ones are not available in critical editions,
