Caribbean slang
 

This thread on a Words forum (below) gives a plausible or the origin of the expression "heard it on the grapevine", and it occurs to me to ask what the equivalent is in the various communities in our region. Here in Cayman, we say "the marl road" - and it happens to be a surprisingly accurate source of news for us. I'm sure Grenada has something different - and for all I know there is a different word used in every major island. I don't even know what they say in Jamaica, though I should do.
https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2...apevine-2.html

Re: Caribbean slang
 

Re: Caribbean slang
 

Re: Caribbean slang
 

I'm surprised by the number of expats (new to the Caribbean, but still...) who don't know that "Bajan" is the universally accepted abbreviation of "Barbadian", and "Trinny" is short for Trinidadian. But I have to say I'm not familiar with other abbreviations or slang terms for other Caribbean people or places. When I first came to the West Indies (now called "Windies", as often as not), Guyana was still called "BG": does it have a new nickname today? Turks & Caicos is called "TCI" most of the time (in my hearing, at least), and The Dominican Republic is "DR". In the Bahamas a "conchie" (pronounced "conky") used to be either a 100%-white Bahamian or a very pale brown one, depending on context, and I think that word originated in Key West. Is it still used, at all?

Re: Caribbean slang
 

Re: Caribbean slang
 

Years ago, I asked a West Indian workmate of mine why they used the term "Do rag" to describe the cloth they carried and used to mop up perspiration.

He explained that the words were actually "Dew rag" to describe mopping the "dew" from their foreheads.

Re: Caribbean slang
 

Re: Caribbean slang
 

I love the use of double-words in the Caribbean. "Too hot" means, well, "too hot", but "too-too hot" means so much more! During a conversation between us last night, my son asked "when do you want it done?" "Soon", I said; "no, soon-soon!" Then of course there's "big-big" and "small-small" and "good-good". Americans are often confused by our take on skin-colour. To them, people of every shade of brown are "black", and that's what they're called in the US. I don't know what it's like in the rest of the Caribbean, but in Cayman, we have a dozen variants of "brown" - and "black" is reserved for individuals who are literally black - even "black-black", when warranted.

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Re: Caribbean slang
 

Our greeting here - originating in Jamaica, Ithink - is "What's happening" - normally shortened to "wa huppen". What is the Eastern Caribbean equivalent? There is an inclination here to add an extra "n" to some words - "fishing" becomes "fish-nunun", for instance. Years ago my young son came back from our local shop laughing, having heard a Jamaican woman explaining to a compatriot that the white stuff on the top of cakes was something called "hice-nunun" - two extra "n" sounds, no less!

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Re: Caribbean slang
 

Re: Caribbean slang
 

Grenada... skinny = mauga, you say, and gossip = brango, and one who gossips = maco. But where do those words come from? Not English, that I can tell. Do you have a local patois down there? Cayman doesn't have one, except for a very few words of Jamaican patwa that have made their way into the language of the lower classes here. (I don't understand patwa - which is how it's spelt, usually. I have a hard enough time understanding Jamaican-accented English, when it's spoken quickly.)

Re: Caribbean slang
 

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Re: Caribbean slang
 

I presume this thread is still alive, since there is no notice that it's not. So, read on...

When we first came to Cayman forty years ago as a white male foreigner I was often addressed (to my horror) as "master", by black or dark-brown Caymanians and Jamaicans. Fortunately, that went out of fashion within a few years! A few years later, Caribbean cashiers and those in similar occupations began calling their customers "bibi", which I think originated in Trinidad. That too passed, in time. Then I became "sir"; and now that I am in my 70s - and I look it - I am sometimes addressed (again, by natives of the region) as "Daddy" - and my wife as "Mummy". Both are terms of respect. I wonder if other Caribbean islands have had the same transition.

Re: Caribbean slang
 

Re: Caribbean slang
 

Another thing I had to get used to in Cayman was the perception that "evening" begins at noon. In every other English-speaking place I'd been to, the greeting "Good evening" was left until around sunset, so it was strange to hear it a minute after midday.

From some Jamaicans of course the greeting was and is, "Good eveling" That still puzzles me, how the "n" sound morphed into "l". Another confusing switch occurs in Michael Holding's cricket commentary, when "middle" comes out "miggle". Where do those two aberrations come from - any ideas? And, do they apply in other Caribbean islands?

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It puzzles me whenever I think of it, how little our local language has changed in the forty years we've been here. The population has increased from 16,000 to 66,000, and a great many of the newcomers have been from all over the world. Back then, we were Caymanians, Jamaicans, British, and others from the Western Hemisphere - Canada and the USA, Latin America, and other Caribbean islands. Since then, the numbers have increased from those places, but whole new communities have joined them from elsewhere. Mainly they're Indians from various parts of India, with their various languages in addition to English, and Filipinos from various islands speaking their different languages in addition to English, but there are something like 100 different nationalities here now, speaking at least sixty different native languages. And yet, no new foreign words have crept into our English - at least, none that I can think of, off hand. Isn't that strange?

Re: Caribbean slang
 

Actually, thinking about that last post of mine... Maybe it's not so strange that other languages haven't seeped into ours, in Cayman. When I first landed in England from Australia, aged 23, I had a very strong Aussie accent, which I had to curb if I wanted to be understood by my new countrymen. When I reached the Continent, I had to abandon it altogether, pretty much - again, if I wanted to be understood. At the same time, I had to eliminate all (well, most) of the Australian slang words, and expressions. (There was a story doing the rounds back them of a girl newly arrived in England who asked Boots if they had any Durex with "Happy Xmas" on it - Durex being our word for what I hastily learnt to call Scotch Tape.)

Today, my slang is either US or English, and only occasionally Caribbean. Off-guard, some expressions from my early days spring out. I broke up a Board meeting a while back when, irritated by a woefully erratic sales chart, I dismissed it scornfully as "up and down like father's pants". Which may or may not be of Australian origin; but was common enough in my little part of the country. My clients have since adopted it as their own, so I guess that's one small victory for a foreign saying.

Re: Caribbean slang
 

Re: Caribbean slang
 

Either country or island has its own slangs, I guess.
I used to live in T&T, and there is a mix of slangs representing the histories/ethnicities of the islands.

For instance, obeah means sorcery and this is from Africa.
There is a phrase "boil down like baji..." meaning to reduce to a weaker state. Baji is a plant used in curries and stews, and in most Indo-Trinbagonian cookery.
Younger people, largely due to Jamaican dancehall music, say "bredren" to mean good friends - it's a corruption of "brethren".
Others are localised, but with no apparent outside origin.

Being cheated on in a relationship is to be "horned" or suffer a "horn".
To experience loss over a failed relationship is "tabanca".
To get or give out physical beatings is "licks" - short form of "licking".
And idiotic actions, views, or speech are "stupidness". In the UK, we say "stupidity" or "idiocy" but it's actually a word in the dictionary. For some reason, we don't use it as much as in the Caribbean.

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I haven't heard the other words; they may be limited to T & T. But "lick" is an old English word that's common throughout the region: "I gettin me licks in", or "e lick im good nah!"

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I've heard Jamaicans say obeah. It must come from the slavery era, since there are Akan (from modern-day Ghana) and Igbo (from modern-day Nigeria) words with similar meanings.

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Oh yes. Here in Cayman, until quite recently we had a law that banned the practice of obeah - by that name; I remember at least one prosecution (successful) during my 42 years here.

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This is a slight departure from the "Caribbean slang" theme, but... local gestures... Musing to myself in the car the other day, I wondered how long I've been giving a slight jerk of my head upwards as a signal to other drivers joining my line of traffic that I'm giving them the OK to butt in ahead of me. Is it a Caribbean-wide thing? I remember from my travelling days in Turkey - and perhaps in some of the Arab countries - that an upward jerk meant simply "no" in answer to a question. Accompanied by a "tsk" sound as an emphasis. Maybe in Greece too. Quite the opposite of my local car-driving gesture.

Do they use it down your way, Grenada?

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Another gesture I've encountered only in Cayman, as far as I can remember, and that's the substitute for a handshake when both hands are carrying something. Men to men more than women, I think. The substitution is the offer of a forearm or an elbow. When two acquaintances meet and both have their hands full, an elbow-bump is expected, and given. Nowhere else in the world have I been where that happens. Elsewhere, both men would simply nod.

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I worked in a bar in Cyprus in '92 and the owners were Greek-Cypriots. They both did this gesture..........regularly!

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I have seen similar in The Balkans.

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Another favourite expression of mine in Cayman is "that's what you get" - pronounced "da' wa' ya geh" - meaning "it serves him right". I expect there is something similar around the region - and of course the Caymanian version quite likely came from Jamaica in years past. So, wa' ya got?

I must add that we Europeans virtually never use the expression; any attempt would be laughed at!

Re: Caribbean slang
 

There are loads of local sayings really eg - crapaud smoke ya pipe - you had a bad experience. Bunjay oi - expletive - they are both from patois i think, the second is a corruption of bon jesus or deus or something like that.

Re: Caribbean slang
 

I remember many years ago my young son coming home from school (here in Cayman) laughing about a Jamaican friend's cheeky comment in a Religious Education class. The teacher told the story of Jesus riding an ass (donkey) into Jerusalem, and to get the kids involved asked the class What would Jesus have done if the disciples hadn't been able to find an ass - or, what if they found one but the owner wouldn't lend it to them? What would you have done, the teacher asked. To which Mark said, to great hilarity, "I tell im bout e fader!" (I'd tell him about his father.) To tell someone about his father - or, worse, his mother - is highly insulting. I think the full version is "tell him that his father's shit stinks", but I'm not sure. A bit like the word "raas" is short for "your arse", which is also insulting. "Get that raas dog out of my yard!" is a common enough usage.

I expect that something of this sort is common in other parts of the Caribbean. Who else has encountered it?

Re: Caribbean slang
 

Tends to be cruder here, maybe its the decline of serious double entendre in calypso, but the more subtle insults have largely been replaced with expletives.

One thing that i still find strange, hello is said good day, which is fine, but goodbye is said as goodday goodday.... or in the afternoon goodnight is hello, and goodnight goodnight is goodbye. Where did that come from...

Remember the lesbian references in the song cheek to cheek dancing or the numerous sparrow sex references. Funny thing, when the track hold you by gyptian came out, no english dj could understand the words, so it was played on the bbc for a month before someone pointed it out, bet this site doesnt block it either...

Like a fast bike pon di road, roo-room, roo-room
Gyal pon de back and she-a boom, boom, boom, boom
Gime mi da maga one or the fat tun tun tun tun
When a player has one time we come to come come
Me outta control
A more fire she want inna her soul
She say more pon more and still she groan
And still me multiply more

Re: Caribbean slang
 

One strange piece of slang - or maybe just dialect - that I don't encounter much these days, here, is the substitution of "make" (pronounced "mek") for "let". "Let me give you this thing" becomes "mek me...". Anything like that over east?

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No thats not normal here. The morning / night greeting is the most strange thing i feel. The reply to good morning is morning morning, and you never say good evening, its always goodnight, to which the reply is goodnight goodnight....

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"Good Day" as an expression on parting was common in earlier centuries in England. Some aspects of West Indian English come straight from Bristol in the 18th century. Ditto with Colloquial American.

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its not so much the use of good day, its more the reply of good day good day...