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I think the word mokita is bogus. I tried to track down its origin and
came up with nothing before this article in American Scientist in 1995.
Does anyone know?


The Mavens' Word of the Day: mokita
http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19991220
December 20, 1999


Richard Thomas wrote:

In an article "The Role of Intelligence in Modern Society"
(American Scientist, 1995), Earl Hunt used the word mokita twice.
Both times he used it to refer to an erroneous belief, e.g. "One of
Herstein and Murray's major contributions has been to expose this
bit of Mokita" (that IQ measures only academic performance).
Checking around, I found that Mokita is a New Guinean word meaning
'the truth that everyone knows but no one admits'. In Hunt's usage
Mokita seems to be more or less equivalent to 'B.S.' and not to
this definition. What's the scoop?

Mokita, with or without the capital letter, does in fact mean 'the
truth that everyone knows but no one talks about'. It implies unspoken
consent by a group.

I suspect you found the site posted by someone called [3]Andreas who
gives the 'that no one admits' spin to the definition, and suggests
that the word be added to the English language. It seems that it is
indeed being picked up, mostly in political or education theory
contexts, rather than in the skeleton-in-the-family context one would
think it was perfect for.

Papua New Guinea is actually home to a fifth of the world's languages,
and so it's misleading to say that mokita is simply a 'New Guinean'
word. From what I can dig up, it comes from the Kilivila language
spoken on Kiriwina, the largest of the Trobriand Islands, part of
Papua New Guinea. I also looked up the American Scientist article, and
it seems to me that Hunt is using the term correctly, referring to
"facts that were well known to the scientific community, but perhaps
best not discussed in public."

I found other uses of the term in the title of an article by one
Elaine Long Scott : "'Mokita', the Truth that Everybody Knows but
Nobody Talkes About: Bias in Grading," and in a summary of the
proceedings of a meeting of the Council of Conservative Citizens,
asserting that most Americans are anti-immigration but no one will
talk about it.

In every instance I've found, mokita is still glossed, a sure
indication that it is not yet in common enough use to be recognized on
its own and included in English dictionaries.

Wendalyn

Previous Words of the Day: [4]Alphabetical or [5]Chronological

References

3. http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/www.andreas.com/fremword.html"
4. http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?action=dly__alph_arc&fn=word
5. http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?action=dly__cron_arc&fn=word