Mis-translation!!

Wow, it's Thursday? Kiss the Dread, it's Thursday! Thank God It's Thursday. What a week I've been having people! I don't have the time to blog (which I love), meet with students (which I enjoy), or conduct any meaningful research (which I need). I'm sorry for the lack of posts and not updating my blog as often as I'd like to...to those of you who still frequent this place, thank you all! It keeps me going knowing that I'm not just blogging for myself.

Anyhow, the week ends on Saturday for me this time around--why, you might ask? Well, I have to be around campus this weekend to participate in the honors convocation, so I get to wear my pretty little skirt, hood, and scholarly looking square cap for three whole hours on Saturday! Sadly, lack of rest has finally caught up with me and I'm no longer able to withstand the many illnesses floating around here so, alas, I have succumbed to a cold virus and am sitting here nursing a bowl of chicken soup, sigh, is life. Things aren't too bad, well except for the fact that my car needs a new oil pan, we had a $40,000 cluster server crash on us this morning because of a damn squirrel and a power transformer (another story for another day), and the fact that I'm sick, things couldn't be better! (I'm not being sarcastic btw).

Anyways, Pebbles is graduating come May, so we're real excited. However, she made a comment the other day that made me stop, drop, and LOL for a while. We were talking about her graduation and she made a comment to me about her advisor saying that he'd be proud to hood her at graduation and she'd love me to come and watch. Of course, being the atypical Jamaican male that I am, my first thought was why would I want to be present when her advisor was hooding (i.e. having sex with in Jamaican colloquial) her--of course, my academic sense eventually took over and I realized that she was referring to the piece of cloth that they put around your neck to say "you is a docta now, go forth and doctor-fy!"

Another incident I had with this same mis-translation of Jamaican terminology occured the other day when I heard to guys talking outside of a store and the other asked to "bum a fag". Of course, I stopped and looked for a moment--then I remembered that to bum a fag only meant that you wanted a cigarrette as opposed to the notion of beating the crap out of a homosexual. Hmmm, I wonder why my business student from Britain always refers to me as a "batty professor" or, more generally, a "batty man"...

The mis-translation thing works both ways by the way; for example, I was in the supermarket with Pebbles a while back and happened to be looking for some hard biscuits (commonly referred to as crackers in Jamaica)...so yours truly walks around an aisle, sees said biscuits, and shouts across "Pebbles, I find the crackers!" Suddenly, there was an ominous silence (not even babies cried!) and I realized that I was the only black person standing in a crowded aisle with a bunch of white folks and a chinese redneck (again, another story for another day)...had this been a few decades earlier and there would surely have been a rass lynching!!

Anyhow, as you can probably ascertain from said post I am on some serious medication, so before I keep rambling on with my fart, I am going to make dinner and eat another soup and go sleep.

Bless it up, zeen!

{Ruff, Ruff} <--Notice new signature ;)

Comments

Scratchie said…
Never fails to have me in stiches...no, not sewn up...bursting with laughter.
Ruff, ruff...what happen, Angry Dog grown up and get deep voice?
Mad Bull said…
Wait, the dawg has become a 'man'? eeehm, well, sorry. The puppy has become a 'dawg'? Congrats, rasta! Still, me did think say you attain them honors long time...
Its a good thing you realised what she meant and passed it on re the hooding thing cause I was just about to surf on over to Cayman Airways site to buy a ticket there to help you drop some lick pon the bredda.
Just kidding. Good post, had LOL!
Anonymous said…
Well, you seh you deh pon some medication....well stay pon dem rass drugs iyah....cause I man like de post! Side effects wikid! ;-)

So.....even you, de MAN dawg a go wear a hood pon Saturday??? Mind you nuh rude bwoy. Next ting you hear seh we haffi come up deh come bum you! Is Georges me, Scratchie and the Bull used to go. Awoah.
:-)))) Dr. D.
Jdid said…
the crackers story is funny