I've been holding out....

Hapai - literally to carry, pregnant

HWotD

Today's words are:

kāne - man, husband, male
"kah-nay"

wahine - woman, lady, wife
"waa-hee-nay"

This is particularly useful when posted on bathroom doors.

HWotD

Today's word is hana.

hana - work, labor, job, duty, function, procedure, process
"hah-nah"

Combine hana with a word from a few days ago, pau (meaning finish, complete), and you have pau hana. Pau hana means finish work. Restaurants and bars offer pau hana specials, which equate to happy hours.

Mau ke aloha, no Hawai`i

Check out a few of our pictures over on Amy's blog!

Good news - my hula halau here had been doing songs like the Hukilau (aka the song they teach you at a tourist luau - a good song, but still not quite Paoakalani), but now we're doing Ka Uluwehi O Ke Kai and I love it!! It brings me back to the days wandering around the Big Island, listening to KAPA!

I LOVE that song (and have for a while, but haven't known what its name was). Here's a video with the song in the background. Plus you can watch (or choose not to watch but still listen to the song) some octopi.



Hawaiian Word of the day is:

Pu'u = bump or mound ranging from pimple to heap, pile, bulge, hill
"Pooh-ooh"

The current volcanic eruption on the Island of Hawai'i is stemming from Pu'u 'o'o ("pooh-ooh, oh-oh") which could mean hill of the 'o'o bird, or have something to do with Pele's walking stick (read the Wikipedia article for more).

You can combine pu'u with maka, meaning "eye" in this case, and it becomes makapu'u bulging eye or hill point. I love the lighthouse at Makapu'u on O'ahu.

HWotD

I think this Hawaiian word is one of my favorites - it just has so many uses!

puka - hole, opening, door, gate, entrance, zero (as in the number)
other meanings- to graduate, to pass through, to emerge, to say, to gain or to win, trap, snare, and almost.

"pooh-kah"

My phone number is five-five-five-puka-eight-puka-puka (555-0800).
Put the plant in the puka.

HWotD

Today's Hawaiian Word is:

mahalo = thank you
"mah-hah-low"

I choose the word of the day by what Hawaiian word pops into my head at the time, and this one very appropriately was the first word I thought of :)

I heard a great story about this word from the tour guide Ku'ulei who took us from one part of Pearl Harbor to the other part where the USS Missouri is. She was very entertaining and told us this story about one of the most famous Hawaiian words.

Apparently back in the day when Hawaii was becoming a famous tourist destination, the Hawaiian culture gurus decided to try to teach the tourists a little bit of Hawaiian and encourage them to clean up after themselves. They decided that a good way to promote both objectives would be to put the word "mahalo" on garbage cans. Legend has it that the tourists thought the meaning of the word to be trash instead of thank you. The same tourists, when thanked by their taxi drivers, or waitresses, or beach boy, or local Hawaiian, thought the Hawaiian was saying trash.

Anyway, aloha and mahalo have very significant meanings in Hawaiian, as described in this article.

Word of the Day

pau - finished, done, completed and sometimes very
"pow"

Are you pau with your dinner?

And know that each - and ' are very important in Hawaiian! Pau means finished, but pa'u is soot or inky or hard labor. Pāʻū is a skirt used in horseback riding or for hula, among other things.

HWotD

In honor of working Tuesdays and Thursdays at the preschool, here is today's Hawaiian word.

Kolohe - Mischievous, naughty, rascal
"koh-low-hey"

Kolohe na keiki. The children are rascals.


PS - Readers, especially Kumu Em, please correct me if I am wrong - I'm still learning!