Salt chuck

[George Lang]

"Salt chuck" is still good West Coast English, at least among a certain
declining population, for the stuff you fall into when you slip off a boat.

 "Chuck" is old Jargon, a convergence of the Nootka "ca'ak" 'flowing"
and the Lower Chinook root, --CqW, which Alexander Ross recorded
circa 1812 as "ill-chu", probably meaning he heard it with the Lower
Chinook gender marker "i-".  The early speakers of the Nootka Jargon
from the 1780s cite it in various forms.

"Hayu" is also from Nootka, purported from the Nootka numeral "ten".
Alexander Walker records the Nootka counting by tens, and it is
supposed (Samarin 1988) that "many tens" meant "lots and lots".

As for the circumlocution, that is what Jargon naturally did, since not
everyone had same control of basic vocabulary, even for something
as omnipresent as the ocean.

I, for one, was happy to have Nadja's texts, but admit that I haven't had
time to read them properly.  So many words, so little time.  Hiyu wawa,
tenas laly.

George