1. My grandmother gave me a first piece to the puzzle. She lived far north in Sweden (north of the polar circle) where the population is sparsely distributed. Visiting somebody could mean travelling hundreds of miles. But there were limits, and once in a while I heard her declare that so-and-so had moved quite too far away, to 'Hottaheiti'.

The message was clear - it was extremely far away, not reachable. So much I understood. Only some 50 years later did it dawn on me that she had used an expression from Polynesia.

Once Tahiti was the center of Polynesian culture, a lucky island located below Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. Tahiti means 'the border' (ta-hiti), as I venture to translate it. (Most words in the Polynesian dialects have several, at first perceived as quite unconnected, meanings.)

Once an Englishman sailing in the Pacific saw an island and asked a Polynesian onboard for the name of the island. He was informed: 'o Tahiti ('it is Tahiti'), which response was noted down, and from thence on the island was known as Otaheiti. Englishmen have irregular spelling habits.

My grandmother must somehow have learnt that there was a consonant missing at the beginning of the name of that island, far beyond the limits of the known world.