North China Daily News. Founded as the weekly North-China Herald in 1850. A daily edition commenced publication in 1864 as the North China Daily News. The newspaper was an influential force in Shanghai and throughout China until 1951.
Seismographs. In 132 AD, Zhang Heng, a scientist in the Eastern Han Dynasty, invented the seismograph to detect the cardinal direction of earthquakes that struck hundreds of miles away - the earliest instrument in the world for forecasting and reporting the movement of an earthquake. Zhang’s seismoscope was a giant bronze vessel, resembling a samovar almost 6 feet in diameter.
Sigil. An inscribed or painted symbol or occult sign considered to have magical power. The ‘g’ is pronounced like a ‘j’. In Chinese feng shui, the most famous sigil is the Sigil of Zuan Kong which holds within it the movement of the Flying Stars.
Mumbo Jumbo (sometimes mumbo-jumbo). English term for confusing or meaningless language. Nowadays often used to express humorous criticism of middle-management and civil-service doublespeak. It may also refer to practices based on superstition, rituals intended to cause confusion, or languages the speaker does not understand.
Jordan. A chamber pot. Popular slang for a chamber-pot used to urinate in at night without having to resort to a trip to the outside toilet (or worse). Origin obscure but possibly from the similarity of urine flasks to the little containers of sacred Jordan water brought back from the Holy Land by mediaeval pilgrims.
China gunboats. Shallow-draught gunboats designed to patrol rivers.
Il faut être le plus malin. One must be the more cunning.
Orbis alius. In Celtic mythology, the Otherworld is the realm of the dead and the home of the deities and other powerful spirits.
Amen. ‘So be it’. Originally from Hebrew ‘āmēn’: truth.
Dyed-in-the-wool. Thoroughgoing. Unchanging in a particular belief or opinion.
Committee of Imperial Defence. Watson reported to this Committee. Although there’s evidence of British intelligence organisations collecting foreign intelligence and intercepting messages as far back as the 15th Century, Britain’s modern history of espionage really began in 1909.
With the growth of Germany’s naval and military strength and the Kaiser’s expanding colonisation, particularly in Africa and the Pacific, the British government was increasingly concerned about the threat to its own Empire. In July 1909 they established a Secret Service Bureau, split into Home and Foreign Sections.
Criminalistics. When Holmes coined the word ‘criminalistics’ circa 1904 he was well ahead of his time. It only came into widespread use around 1945 to describe the science dealing with the detection of crime and the apprehension of criminals.
Railway glasses. Their use by train passengers stemmed from the fact that the early railway carriages were open to the sky. By the mid Victorian period this was no longer the case, but railway spectacles continued to be used by rail workers, either for travelling on the locomotive or when working on the track. Even then the Edwardian period would be a bit late though Holmes might have discovered an old pair in a drawer somewhere.
Suffragists. Members or supporters of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies campaigning for women’s right to vote. Different from the suffragettes, they eschewed violence in favour of advocacy. For example, in February 1907 Millicent Fawcett co-led what became known as the Mud March. Over 3,000 women marched in a public procession through the muddy streets of London, peacefully demonstrating their support for women’s suffrage.
Dawn Redwood. Taxodiaceae (Redwood family). Watson was well aware of the search for exotic plants for the Edwardian garden. One of the most exciting discoveries in the plant world in the mid-20th Century was the deciduous conifer, the Dawn Redwood, Metasequoia glyptostroboides, in China. The trees were hitherto only known from fossil evidence dating back 100 million years, and thought to have been extinct for 5 million years.
Taels. A unit of weight and by extension a currency. In general the silver tael weighed around 40 grams. General Yuán paid Watson a fee of nine thousand taels. At the time this would have equalled around 900 British pounds. In today’s purchasing power that would be about £100,000 British pounds or roughly US$135,000. Plenty to bet with at the Gatwick Races.
Orbate. Every Emperor of China feared dying ‘orbate’ - i.e. childless, without heir or descendant to perform the vital ceremonies at the deceased ruler’s shrine.
Bastinado. A beating. The instrument employed was a thick cane, cloven in two, and several feet long, made of bamboo, a hard, strong, and heavy wood. The lower part is as broad as a hand, the upper smooth and small for ease of handling.
Limehouse is a once-poverty-stricken district in east London located 3.9 miles (6.3 km) east of Charing Cross. A large Chinese community developed there, established by the crews of merchantmen in the opium and tea trades, particularly Han Chinese. The area achieved notoriety for opium dens in the late 19th century, often featured in pulp fiction works by such authors as Sax Rohmer.
Meurtres à l’anglaise. Murders English-style. Watson is being witty. Although the terrible late-Victorian Jack the Ripper murders have never been solved (nor, surprisingly, investigated by Sherlock Holmes), Victorian Britain was no more inclined to shooting, stabbing, throttling, poisoning and serial killers than any other society.
‘Nine Springs.’ Holmes had learnt about Chinese beliefs well. ‘Nine Springs’ (also ‘Yellow Springs’) is the Chinese poetical term for the abode of the dead beneath the earth.
Shishaquita. The name of the Emperor’s steam-launch came from one built in 1906 at my favourite old (now defunct) boat-building yards Abdela & Mitchell in Gloucestershire where some speculate the famous ‘African Queen’ of the Hollywood movie was constructed around 1912. For cognoscenti of such bits of Britain’s history I gave Shishaquita the power source used in real life in the Abdela & Mitchell boat Angela, namely a high pressure single cylinder engine.
English Idioms
An idiom is ... a group of words established in general usage with a meaning you can’t take straight from the words themselves, for example, English speakers say someone is ‘pulling my leg’. To pull someone’s leg means to tease them by telling them something untrue.
Or, ‘Let sleeping dogs lie’ means ‘stay quiet, avoid restarting a conflict’.
Because it arises from a society over perhaps centuries an idiom may be incomprehensible in straight translation. As in all languages, there are some thousands of idioms in English. Here are ones used in Sherlock Holmes And The Nine-Dragon Sigil:
‘What’s it got to do with the price of tea in China?’ Expression denoting an irrelevance or non sequitur in the current discussion.
‘When the chips are down’. At the final, critical moment; when things really get difficult, when no more choices can be made. This idiom may have derived from the card-game poker, and may not have come into widespread use until the 1930s.
To strike paydirt. In California’s gold rush of 1849, to strike paydirt was to dig until you hit dirt that would pay - soil with gold in it. Idiomatically, to find something valuable, e.g. a scholar who makes a valuable discovery may say s/he has struck pay dirt.