Hallivanamehe (Hallivanamees)

Literally ‘grey old man’. Two possibilities paraphrased from TT: 1) There used to be a very sharp curve here resulting in numerous accidents. Given the, ahem, abstemious nature of Estonian drivers, any mishap had to be because of Ülemiste Vanake leaping into the middle of the road (then again the old man of Ülemiste lake was a liquid spirit); 2) The curve, then street, where a grey-bearded old codger used to live until his house was demolished. And there’s another less romantic possibility (mine, so get your punch* of salt ready): the word hallivatimees means variously grey bird or animal, or wolf (becoming grey-coated chap, i.e. soldier). It also seems to have a deeper history, with its animal forms perhaps related to kriimsilm, scar-eye, wolf (hunt) of Estonian folklore, from kriim, suggesting something soiled, spotted, scratched or wounded, something malevolent. Hallivanimees would be the sanitized version and, quite simply, is easier to pronounce. Either way, by the 80s, Hunt Kriimsilm had turned into a cheery little TV puppet of a proletarian wolf with a red check cloth cap and tie, and an annoying tendency to sing.

* The word ‘punch’ does and does not have anything to do with fists. It is said to come from Hindi paanch, पाँच, for the 5 ingredients making the drink, but the details (time of first recorded use, etc.) don’t tally. So let’s say that the drink known to Brits as ‘punch’ is related to the Hindi paanch, itself derived from PIE -penkwe, the common ancestor of many a European language; Latin quinque, Lith. penkios, Farsi پنج (panj), Albanian pesë, Gaelic cuig and Welsh pymp, as well as Eng. five and Ger. fünf, along with their five-finger cognates fist and Faust. The point of all this being the hypothetical development of a PIE base-5 or quinary counting system, with 5 a natural ‘clump’. such as 10, a dozen, 20 or 60. And hence my ‘punch of salt’, a slightly more copious amount of skepticism being in order.