kulolo(koo-loh-loh) (n) Thick Hawaiian coconut and taro pudding often served in slices.
Example
English: Mom! This fudge is weird! It doesn’t even taste like chocolate.
Pidgin: Get kulolo? Awesome!
Note: ‘Ōlelo is a Hawaiian word meaning language, speech, word, etc. To see the current list of Hawaiian and Pidgin words, definitions, and usage please click on
pāhoehoe(PAH-hoe-hoe) (n) A type of lava that is smooth and often slick when wet.
Example
English: Billy! Don’t run! This lava is really smooth and—it’s okay! Don’t cry!
Pidgin: What I said? Das wet pāhoehoe, lōlō. You run like that in slippahs of course you going break your head.
Note: ‘Ōlelo is a Hawaiian word meaning language, speech, word, etc. To see the current list of Hawaiian and Pidgin words, definitions, and usage please click on
I hate math. My suspicions that the numbers game is rigged happened when Mr. Waters, my sixth grade teacher, taught us that a negative times a negative equaled a positive, clearly the most counter-intuitive idea ever.
I stuck with math through algebra and geometry until I hit a wall my senior year in calculus. After that, I avoided manipulating numbers. I barely scrapped by in required college stats classes where the biggest concept I learned was the truth of Mark Twain’s assertion that there are lies, damn lies, and statistics. I’d add politics to his list, but it’s not that kind of blog.
Before higher mathematics completely derailed any ideas of a career in physics or chemistry, I had hope that it would all make sense again, that some teacher would pop up like a cardboard character in a Monty Python sketch and say, “Just kidding! You were right all along! Here’s how it really works!” But the joke’s on me.
Back when I had faith that the light at the end of the tunnel wasn’t a train, algebra felt like a logic puzzle I could unlock, tumbling the Xs and Ys into solvable combinations as long as I played along with the wink-wink negative number story. I’d enjoyed geometry with its angles and planes and complimentary numbers that added to 360, the top-secret-insiders-only key to calculating right angles, building the pyramids, thin-walled cathedrals, and all that jazz.
I’ve retained enough math to balance a checkbook, to figure out how much square footage of carpet, sod, or paint to order, and to convert store discounts from percentages to dollars. Beyond that I’m pretty useless.
Which makes it tough when I’ve been the homework go to guy for so long and now I can’t help my son. I don’t tell him he’s taking the same math class as a high school freshman I took as a senior or that I hit the same conceptual wall he did and never found a way over.
I tell him to ask his Dad.
They’re sitting at the kitchen table as I type, heads bent and pencils scratching, working through cosins of imaginary numbers to calculate the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. I hear laughs and smacking high-fives when their answers match the back of the book. From now on Spanish and math are Dad’s domain; as Mom I can only watch from the sidelines and remind my son of deadlines and tests, a secretary’s role at best.
Better get used to it.
(poh-poh AH-nee-AH-nee) (n) Glass balls or floats found on Hawaiian beaches that usually originated from fishing nets in Asia.
Example
English: How much for that little glass ball? It will look perfect on the patio!
Pidgin: Try look! Pōpō aniani! We go sell ’um to the tourists!
Note: ‘Ōlelo is a Hawaiian word meaning language, speech, word, etc. To see the current list of Hawaiian and Pidgin words, definitions, and usage please click on
I once heard a kumu hula say that he never left Hawai‘i because everywhere he stepped he was taking aloha with him. It’s something I’ve tried to keep in mind, particularly when the endless snow and ice outside my window starts to grind on me.
I’m not alone in wanting to beat the winter blues; it’s about this time every year that several local businesses sponsor Hawaiian Days celebrations with plastic leis from Taiwan and samba music from Brazil. When all the paper floral decorations, blow up coconut trees, and neon green cellophane grass skirts come out, so do the comments. People who know I’m from Hawai‘i say things like, “Bet you’re glad you have real seasons now; you can’t have Christmas without snow!” and “Try this Hawaiian taco—it has pineapple!”
People who really know me simply give me chocolate and space. With proper barefoot weather my sense of humor returns.
More than 25 years ago as a blushing bride I went to waaaay rural Montana to meet my new husband’s extended relatives, neighbors, and family friends. I was perched on the edge of a couch trying to keep all the names straight when one older guy, probably a WWII vet, said in all seriousness, “Hawaii? Huh. So, tell me, how do you like being in civilization?”
“I’ll let you know when I get back,” I snapped without missing a beat.
Granted, probably not the most endearing or tactful thing I could’ve said, but honest. I grew up in a suburb of Honolulu City, not a grass shack. Unlike him I’d lived with more people, tv channels, restaurants, and shopping malls around than cows.
One lone Montana cowboy’s misconceptions about Hawai‘i isn’t really noteworthy. But Hollywood’s version of Hawai‘i crops up even in places you’d think should know better.
Once when I was a musician in high school, a bunch of us were touring the US performing in places as diverse as Carnegie Hall and Disneyland. We were in a big New York City department store when one of my friends decided to purchase something.
The cashier was New York chic: stilettos, pencil skirt, lots of black eyeliner and red, red lips. To us she oozed sophistication.
“So where’re youse guys from?” she asked. Apparently, we didn’t blend.
“Hawai‘i,” my friend said.
“Cool. Don Ho, right? But just so you know, we don’t take your kind of money.”
“You mean Traveler’s cheques?”
“No foreign currency. American dollars only. It’s store policy.”
My friend blinked, took a $1 bill out of her wallet, ripped it in half, and tossed it on the counter. “Damn,” she said. “Our money’s no good here. Let’s go!” and stormed out.
It was awesome.
But not really aloha. I try to remember that when some clueless but well-intentioned babooze asks if I had movie theaters or in-door plumbing growing up.
After all, I don’t get big cowboy belt buckles, either.
(HOH-loh-HOH-loh) (v) Pidgin for going out and finding some fun.
Example
English: “Lilinoe, let us get in your car and drive up and down main street and see what others are doing. Perhaps we can meet young men with whom we can converse.”
Pidgin: “Lili! We go holoholo!”
Note: ‘Ōlelo is a Hawaiian word meaning language, speech, word, etc. To see the current list of Hawaiian and Pidgin words, definitions, and usage please click on