Professor Daizal Samad
WARM, WAR, WARD

There was a time when I actually had a television in Guyana. I looked and listened at the news only, mostly on LRTV on Channel 10 or DTV on Channel 8. Every now and then, I looked at NCN, fed out of New Amsterdam. With the last one, it depended on the reception, often poor enough to trigger a headache.

It was always a difficult task to get past the poor pronunciation and the turgid news- writing and poor reading in order to get at the substance of what the newscasters were trying to convey. I kept hearing words like “persons”: “Persons in the community complained about de poor quality of water or none water at all.” Persons? None water? I wonder what has happened to the word “people”.

Words are mangled: “warm” (pronounced with an open O) becomes WAARM. “War” with an open O is pronounced WAAR. A hospital ward (again, pronounced with an open O) is turned into WAARD.

One the other hand, we hear about domestic “VOILENCE” as against VIOLENCE. Hyper-correction? There is no rhythm to the reading, and what is meant to be conveyed or communicated becomes quite lost. Listening to people on various religious pulpits reading, I wonder if we have lost the ability to read. That great work called the New Testament is all chewed up in the reading. Our reading of basic English is worse than our speaking of it, and our reading is very poor. Yet, we will wind and grind to “music” and congratulate ourselves on our “rhythm.”

On the bright side, I have learned some really interesting things in recent weeks. It seems that there is a village called Victoria where one is ill-advised to dress “anyhow.” If one wears a plaid shirt, one immediately gets the name “BIG CHECK.” “Hey, Big Check”, how yuh doin bai?” I rather like that. Someone else introduced me to all this “jiggery pugary” that people do. All kinds of wrong things, foolish things. Jiggery pugary! “Prof.,” I am told, “You can’t believe the kinda jiggery pugary happening in Rose Hall!” It is smooth, rhythmic.

Someone else complained of our Neighbourhood Police just standing around the market, “gyaafing” and waiting for “prags”! Prags! It was new to me; it means “freeness” I am told. I suppose “prags” would be fruits and vegetables or a “small change” or whatsoever is on offer as “prags.” A thief is a “chore.” and it could be that it comes from the idea that stealing is his job or chore. Or, maybe, it is a variation of the old time Creolese word “kochore” or Kochar”. People like my late friend Wordsworth MacAndrew would have jumped on these things with an excitement born of genuine intellectual curiosity. Alas! Mac has left us to drown in our lack of the drive to know.

Speaking of MacAndrew, back in the 70s, he had compiled a long list of proverbs that we use in Guyana. Does anyone know where that is? I heard these proverbs a few days ago: “Kindness mek crapaud loss he tail” and “When leaf fall in watah, it nah ratten right away” and “wha ah joke fuh lil bai is dead fuh crapaud.” Then there is “Monkey jib he pickney till he spoil am” and “Cow only know he tail till when is mosquito season.” The Manchester-Liverpool area in Corentyne is a gold-mine of these proverbs, if anyone could awaken and do some work on this, it would be a good thing. Please.

This language of ours is so very interesting, and I keep reminding that language is never right nor wrong; it is appropriate or inappropriate. It would be inappropriate to have our President standing before the United Nations General Assembly saying: “Abeedeez does taak suh and in abee country, abee believe dat wan wan dutty build dam.” Inappropriate. But it would be quite appropriate for a wicket-keeper to shout: “Throw ah ball bai! Leh we run he raas out!”

Today, I was reminded, is my “First Day”, my birthday. I did not get it at all. And the gentleman who told me this allowed me to stay in my ignorance for almost 30 minutes, then broke into uncontrollable laughter. It was sheer music, but me bin done bex bad bad. With all of this, there is no time to get bored.