Ilka Hilton-Clarke

ilkahiltonclarke@gmail.com

A letter from a middle-aged American tourist, claiming that Trinidadians, with the exception of Mr. Desmond Bourne, do not speak English. Published in the "Trinidad Guardian" recently, it seems to have excited somebody called Allenbury rather a lot.

Mr. Allenbury called this morning to say that he too, is having a little difficulty understanding the people. Trinidadian words and phrases, he told us, not only offend the ear, but also, when we come right down to it, do not make sense at all.

Some of the things that puzzle are: "roast bake", "just now", "sweet eye", "cuch-cush", "fresh-cold", and "youself,too", all terms that he hears from the natives every day of the week. Could we, he wanted to know , explain them.

We couldn't. But we discovered an old son of the soil (any resemblance this description may bear to that of Mr. Andrew Carr is strictly coincidental) who undertook to explain to the uneducated Mr. Allenbury.

"Eh-heh," said the old son of the soil, "Lemme hear de firs' one. Roas' bake ? Eh-eh, you mean a big man so never hear about roas' bake ?

"Life funny, yes. Anyway you could tell he dat a roas' bake is a bake what you roas'. Tell he doan get confuse, you doan bake it, you roas' it. An' sometime again you fry it, buh dat now is fry bake.

"What again ? Just now ? You mean if ah was to tell dis mister dat ah comin jes' now, he wun know what ah mean ? Well leh he siddong an wait den"

"Lemme hear you again. Sweet eye ? English people ent have to worry wid sweet eye man, sweet eye is Creole business. It ent concern he.

" What again ? Cush-cush ? What he car understan' about cush-cush?"

Mr. Allenbury had explained that he did not understand the need for repetition. Why cush-cush, he wanted to know. Why not just plain cush. Why paw-paw, gree-gree, and gru-gru ?

The old son of the soil had an interesting explanation.

"We bong to call it cush-cush because if you was to go in de market an' say you want cush, dey ent go know what you want. An' dem police so ignorant dey would lock you up for using obscene language.

"Fresh cole ? A fresh cole is a cole what you does get. Every cole is a fresh cole because when you see it stop being a fresh cole, is pleurisy.

"He ent know dat ? Ah t'ort English people did know everyt'ing.

"You self, too ? Dat is somet'ing everybody does say. It ent have nutting hard in dat. It mean den, ' Wha' happenin' to you?' buh not in a insultive way, you know. Buh wait nuh, wha' wrong wid dis man, he doan speak English or what?"

We hope Mr. Allenbury will be satisfied with these explanations because they are all he is likely to get.

Macaw, January 23, 1959

to the top