La Plee Ka Tombay

“But if it looks like the rain is coming, then you must say, ‘La plee ka veni’. You understand?” Of course, I understood and answered, “Wee” (oui) which means “Yes.” My french patois vocabulary was increasing gradually. Early in the game, I would hear a family member say, ‘Boh zhay!’ when he was shocked or surprised in any way. That corresponds roughly to ‘Bon dieu!” - ‘good God!’ or ‘good heavens!’

Later I learnt that hunters would shine a very bright torch light at a manicou gros yeux to blind the animal, before catching it. ‘Gros yeux’ means ‘big eyes’. ‘Bravay dahzhay’ was an adjective to describe a ‘don’t-care-damn’ person. If someone was very greedy, you could call him a ‘gabilan’ or a ‘tan tan bo hog.’

Another expression which is still in use is ‘mal yeux’ or as most people say ‘mal joe’ meaning bad or evil eyes. Some mothers believe that if someone says their baby is pretty, the child may become ill. Hoping to prevent this, they put a string of jumbie beads on the baby’s wrist or ankle before leaving the house.

When a person bought something in a shop, sometimes he would ask for a ‘lang yappe’. Invariably, the shopkeeper would give him a little more of whatever was purchased.

“L’ecole biche” was a common patois expression in my schooldays. L’ecole means ‘school’ and ‘biche’ - ‘break’. Boys were benched for staying away from school without the permission of their parents or teachers. The ‘biche breaker’ was made to lie face down on a bench and a teacher would give him four or six strokes with a guava or tamarind rod on his buttocks.

When we lived in Jackson Place, sometimes I was sent to buy coals from the ‘cocobay’ man in upper Duke Street.

That patois word meant that he had leprosy. It was very strange to pay him a penny in the palm of his fingerless hand.

“Why you all reach home so late? You went dreevaying again?” my mother would ask my brother and me. She wanted to know if we went ‘knocking about’, ‘moving from place to place’ or ‘roaming about’. Sometimes when talking to her brood of seven, she would use the patois word, ‘toot moon’ which meant ‘everybody’. It is pretty close to the actual French word ‘tout le monde’.

One phrase I can’t forget is ‘zaffaire you’, often said in a tone of disgust indicating “It’s all your affair. I’m finished with the whole thing!” Another is ‘geegeeree’ meaning ‘restless’ or ‘frightened’. It’s often used as a question, “How you so geegeeree?”

In the dialogue of some of my plays, I have used a few patois words and colloquialisms if they suited the character. In episode 17 of the television version of “Calabash Alley, “ I have Carol Parker singing a French creole lullaby for a crying baby which was given to Papa George by a bewildered teenage mother. It goes like this, “Doh Doh petit popo / Petit popo pah vlay doh doh / See petit popo / Pah vlay doh doh / Maco chat kay mange le.”

Roughly translated it means, “Sleep my little baby. If you don’t sleep, the big cat will come to eat you.” Frightening words! But meaningless to babies who listen to the sound of voices and look at facial expressions. In the story, the lullaby was sung in dulcet tones by a smiling lady with the love light in her eyes. The baby stopped crying but Papa George fell asleep.

An interesting patois aphorism is, “Sah say slaow, say slaow. Sah say mawh, say mawh.” What is yours is yours. What is mine is mine.