The Tamil Lexicon, having been saturated with all sorts of foreign elements, doesn’t merit the name but only deserves to be entitled the South Indian Lexicon.

     Definition of words is as defective as the presentation of vocabulary in the Lexicon.

     ‘ƒppam’ is not a vulgar form of ‘appam’. Both denote different kinds of confection. šuvaro——i is not liver but spleen. Potti is not varƒl, but kuŠavai, which is much smaller than varƒl and grows only upto one foot, while varƒl grows upto two feet and resembles a grown-up man's shin in size and shape. Both are fresh-water fishes but different species.

     The poetic order of words in Tamil is of eight modes, one of which is A˜aimaŠipƒppu, so called because a poem or stanza with that order makes sense only when all of its lines are taken in the reverse order, which resembles a snake coming out of its hole head foremost after taking a complete turn as it had entered the hole also in the same manner, i.e., head foremost. So, if a quartrain of A˜aimaŠi pƒppu construction is to be interpreted, the fourth line becomes the first, the third line the second, the second line the third, and the first line the fourth.

     The Lexicon defines A˜aimaŠi pƒppu as follows:

     ‘A mode of constructing in which the expression at the end of a verse is conjoined with a word in the middle of a verse, or with one in the beginning of another verse, one of eight poru˜k†˜.”

     This is entirely different from that given in Tamil grammars, and not in keeping with the primary, meaning of the term A˜aimaŠi pƒppu, lit. ‘hole-turning snake.’

     Kašakara-am (gajakar–a) p†du-tal is an idiomatic expression meaning ‘performance of a somersault as that of an elephant’ and used to denote the accomplishment of a most difficult task by a person. The Lexicon has taken the expression to mean ‘moving one's ear or ears as an elephant’. There is not only lack of force in this interpretation, but also the verb p†du does not admit of such a construction.