Himproving Hinglish

By Daniel Thwaites

Two Saturdays ago when Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce demanded the first Olympic-Jubilee-Independence rukkumpance (recompensation and comeuppance) for her hard work, Jamaica erupted in jollification. The Queen's English couldn't quite deliver the emotion, so it was pretty much screaming and jumping around at my yard until a linguistic genius on TV delivered the perfect word. He was, he said, "overlated" at Shelly-Ann's win. Well played, sir, well played!

As far as colonial inheritances go, we could have done a lot worse than English. There are other ex-colonies out there speaking German, Dutch and Portuguese. These are, I'm sure, wonderful languages, but I'll stick with English.

That said, Jamaicans continue to improve this inheritance in a number of splendiferous ways. There are some language purists who don't like Jamaicanisation. I can't help them, but I can let them know that one Jamaican improvement is a pretty good description of them. 'Crewmoojin' captures the 'screw-face', as well as the curmudgeonly attitude.

Sussuflastic bolt

I remember some golden agers on TV years aback who described a treat as 'splendacious' and 'sussuflastic'. Those words may not be in the dictionary yet, but that's because the elderly wordsmiths were ahead of the curve. The Oxford English Dictionary is poorer for not recognising them immediately and spreading our linguistic wealth. By the time of Bolt's sussuflastic win, I was overlated again.

Some words immediately signal it's a Jamaican, no matter how seriously that person might have acquired a British or American 'accident' from travelling overseas. One such is 'flim', and you have to admit that flim is flimsy. Another is 'cerfiticate'. 'Cerfiticate' is a definite improvement, bringing as it does the implication of 'fitness' for something or the other which is, after all, why you want a cerfiticate in the first place.

Another staple is 'rosemantic', which linguistically combines the timeless metaphor of the rose to the word for the feeling it is often used to symbolise.

Our improvements tend to hew closely to the rich colourfulness of the Jamaican life where people 'reverse back' and 'fall down' for the added emphasis. The covetous are actually 'cobitchous', which needs no additional explanation, and malice aforethought becomes 'forethought of malice', which sounds way more dangerous to me.

Draumatised and all that

We are not merely traumatised, we're 'draumatised'. In a sad case I heard about, a cobitchous woman with a forethought of malice held another's child 'hostrich' until police were called, at which time the woman got nervilous and released the child. Nervilousness is the result of bad faith, where the wrongdoing contributes to nerves.

One gentleman's doctor gave him a description to fill at the pharmacy for his alterated stomach. Another used to complain that if the drains in Annotto Bay weren't cleaned, it would cause an ecodemic. I'm also told of an elderly woman who brought a courthouse to a halt with dramatic evidence on a sexual assault case when the judge inquired if her assailant had actually made contact with her. She testified: "Di nasty rapist bwoy tek out him pestilent an' come aftah mi." Noted! Improper deployment of the pestilent can draumatise other people.

Pestilential issues have caused some creativity, though. Think of the wondrous word/concept coined by Fabby Dolly:

"Man nuh drink bag juice pon base,

Strictly peanut punch fi wine out my girl waist ...

De girls dem want de sweet juice from de long cane,

Tantalise dem body, stirbilise dem brain."

'Stirbilise' may not be in the dictionary, but it should be. It's obviously a mixture of 'stir' and 'stabilise', meaning, I think, to fix something good and proper and settle it down by first hackling it properly.

Sometimes the inventiveness takes odd turns. I had a treasured mento CD (will di tief please return it!) on which the crooner said:

"She's got frettles on her ... . But! She is nice, so nice!

When she's in my 'harms', it's just like paradise."

Considering that 'likkle' is the less-polished form of 'little', 'bokkle' of 'bottle', and 'sekkle' of 'settle', then 'freckle' is probably degraded from 'frettle'. It makes sense. However that may be, the lady object of this rosemanticism sounds like she's in 'harms' way, so that's an improvement in accuracy as well.

Alas, I read where Bruce Golding is saying that he felt "betrayed" by Dudus. It's funny how perfect English can make no sense. According to the streetwise legal analysts I spoke to, everybody nervilous that Dudus gave information as part of his 'please bargain' with the American government, "so now dem waan mek Dudus ah escape goat fi everyting". I'm overlated they see so clearly through the chikini.

Daniel Thwaites is a partner of Thwaites, Lundgren & D'Arcy in Westchester and Bronx counties in New York. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com.