pidgins, Creoles fieldwork, on the side, macho, pub crawl, penchant

Then there’s Derek Bickerton. One of the field’s old lions, he has spent the last four decades studying pidgins and Creoles and writing a few novels on the side. A self-described macho “street linguist” for whom fieldwork is part pub crawl, Bickerton has a penchant for big ideas and a “total lack of respect for the respectable” that, judging from his new memoir, has put him at odds with bureaucrats and colleagues. “Bastard Tongues” is gossipy, vain and pugilistic — in other words, all the juicy things an academic memoir should be but too rarely is.


這裡的咖啡豆質素固然好，但其實店內那些自行調配的咖啡，更合我的胃口。我試了一杯Creolo Blend (sic)，那是店員特別為我量身調配的咖啡，用上哥倫比亞和巴西咖啡豆配搭而成。喝一口，極香、極濃、極苦，香醇不已，當下便買了一大包。看著店員用最傳統的繩藝包好每一袋咖啡，心想，賣咖啡也如此細心，難怪連英國女皇喝後，也讓它成為皇室指定的咖啡供應商。

lion

1. 1. A very brave person.
   2. A person regarded as fierce or savage.
   3. A noted person; a celebrity: a literary lion.

pidgins and Creoles

pidgin

(pĭj'ən)
pidgin
n.
A simplified form of speech that is usually a mixture of two or more languages, has a rudimentary grammar and vocabulary, is used for communication between groups speaking different languages, and is not spoken as a first or native language. Also called contact language.

[From PIDGIN ENGLISH.]

Creoles

The French term créole is used to designate either a person (in the West Indies specifically a white person of French origin) born in the former colonies, or forms of language (in some islands also known as patois) spoken in Martinique, Guadeloupe with its dependencies, Guyane, Haiti, parts of Louisiana, the Commonwealth countries of Dominica, St Lucia, Grenada, and Trinidad, as well as the Indian Ocean islands of Reunion, Mauritius, Rodrigues, and the Seychelles. It is this latter sense which will be treated here, with special reference to the Caribbean.

French (or ‘French-based’) creoles are contact languages born, in the case of the West Indies, as a result of the meeting of French colonizes and slaves brought from West Africa in the 17th and 18th c. [see Colonization]. Today they are the native language of the majority of the population in the French West Indian départements and in Haiti, and to a lesser extent in Dominica and St Lucia, but survive only marginally in Grenada and Trinidad.


on the side
1 in addition to your main job:
He makes a little money on the side by cleaning windows in his spare time.

2 secretly:
I think he has another woman on the side (= a relationship with a woman who is not his wife).

3 MAINLY US (of food in a restaurant) served on another plate, or not on part of the meal:
I'd like a salad with the dressing on the side (= with the dressing served separately from the salad), please.
I'll have a omelette with fries on the side, please.


fieldwork 
noun [U]
study which consists of practical activities that are done away from your school, college or place of workmacho
adjective INFORMAL MAINLY DISAPPROVING
behaving forcefully or showing no emotion in a way traditionally thought to be typical of a man:
He's too macho to admit he was hurt when his girlfriend left him.
I can't stand macho men.

pub crawl noun [C] UK INFORMAL
a visit to several pubs, one after the other, having a drink or drinks at each one:
We went on a pub crawl on Saturday night.

penchant
noun [C usually singular]
a liking for, an enjoyment of, or a habit of doing something, especially something that other people might not like:
a penchant for melodrama/skiing/exotic clothes
Her penchant for disappearing for days at a time worries her family.

bastard (UNPLEASANT)
noun [C] OFFENSIVE
an unpleasant person:
He was a bastard to his wife.
You lied to me, you bastard!
HUMOROUS You won again? You lucky bastard (= I don't think you deserve it)!
This crossword's a bastard (= very difficult).