- Dedicated to my friend and colleague, Zeno Obi Constance, the Caribbean Calypsologist
By Tony Deyal
A chicken in the car and the car can’t go, that’s the way to spell Chicago. When the car is a four-wheeled, road vehicle, powered by an engine and able to carry a small number of people, it is a different kettle of flash. While they were called auto, automobile, machine and. in the early days, motorcar, nowadays it has more names than types. You hear about whip, beater, crate, heal, jalopy, sleeper and old POS (and that does not mean Port-of-Spain). In the old days it was a “chariot” or “horseless carriage” and that had its own stories.
The Queen of the time took the visiting Catholic Pope for a ride in a horse carriage through London. Suddenly one of the horses let out a bottom burp, or blow-off, from flatulence and the embarrassed Queen apologised with, “Oh my goodness, I am so terribly sorry!” The Pope took it in his stride, “Oh, don’t worry about it. If you hadn’t said anything, I’d have just thought it was one of the horses!” In some places, there were trains but they had their own problems. One driver was told by his boss, “You are by far the worst train car driver ever. How many have you derailed this year?” The driver replied, “I’m not sure; it’s hard to keep track.”
Then the English called it a “wheeled vehicle” and the French made that into “carre”. And that took the word “car” into a different dimension. For example, there is a CAR Framework which I used in the University many years ago. It stands for “Context, Action, Result”. Then it was widened to C-cAR or “Challenge, Consequences, Action, Results”. There is also another car in the joke levels. For example, “What is the difference between a BMW and a baby carriage?” The baby carriage is the result of last year’s fun on wheels. Let’s try another one for car. The word is ‘whip’. As a car, its origins were in the combination of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and hip-hop.
A jewel thief entered a house mid-afternoon. He tied up the woman, and at knife-point demanded that the man hand over all the jewels and money. The man started sobbing and said, “You can take anything you want. You can even pistol whip me, but please untie the rope and free her.” The thief was quite taken by that and responded, “You must really love your wife!” The man almost in tears begged, “No, but she will be home shortly”.
There are other “car” words, some of which most of us stay far from because, when you’re close, it might got beyond car into cardiology. Like when I was driving through Port-of-Spain and a really tough-looking man nearly ran into my car and shouted, “Car-Car Hole!” I replied, “But I don’t see no hole hear?” The man added, “Stupid a-hole” and other bad words before walking away. Then there is “carpenter”. I really tried to make a pun on the woodwork and eventually I nailed it. I also tried “carpetpag” and asked, “What’s the difference between me and a carpet?” A carpet will get laid. Mine at home once got into a fight and ended up getting floored. Then there is a harder one. I was on a horse and was being chased by a Lion, and on my left there was a huge Unicorn! Me, I got off the “Carousel”.
Another one was, “I caught a cold on a carousel. I think there was something going around!” You might not believe it, but another word caught me with a story, “The Pope and one of his dignitaries were sitting around doing crossword puzzles. The Pope asked: “Can you think of a four-letter word meaning ‘woman’ that ends with U-N-T?” The dignitary thought for a moment and then told the Pope, “AUNTY”. The Pope quickly responded, “Yes! Of course!” He then asked his dignitary, who was really a Cardinal, “You have an eraser?”
The Pope is not the only big-shot to be a caricature. President Trump, determined to catch and send back people who are not US-born, was told there were at least 12 Brazilians in the migrant caravan heading to the Southern border. Trump turned to Elon Musk and whispered, “How much is a Brazillion?” This is what the English call “Carousal” which means “the act of celebrating and enjoying yourself and laughing loudly with other people.” While one of my friends, Jamesy, took up the chant “car, car, hole” about Trump, and then added, “Well he car dance. He car sing. He car help himself. And worse, he car talk and walk at the same time.” Then, typically Jamesy, he asked me, “You ever heard about CarDrugs? It is The Holy Grail of Limited Edition Slaps. Well, I found one they could slap Trump with. His car driver got busted for drugs because they found over 300 pounds of dope in the back seat!”
While the US is in the news all the time, we have a CAR in Trinidad and some of the “Car-ibbean” that is supposedly bigger and better than anything else at this time of the year. It is CAR-NIVAL. For instance, we have some interesting “Spanish” of “Spanglish” like Lord Melody’s “Si Senor” (Juanita my darling you say you love me, Si Senor…); Lord Relator with Spanish Woman (turning manana to banana); the Stinger with “Spanish Rood”; Young Cypher with Spanish language he couldn’t understand; Lion with Maria; Ebony landing in Venezuela when his boat shut down; and the most popular of all, the great Crazy with the “Seminal”.
It is rightly known, not just for its Spanish, but its original, ground-breaking and awesome influence on Carnival. The “car” part came from the Spanish “Ven Aca” which in English means, “Come here!” However, with Crazy in charge, he was back to Trinidadian wit and changed the “Aca” to “a car”. However, this was not enough for him. As he performed using “bend” as “ben” he shouted, “Don’t ben a car, ben a truck. Ben a bus…”
So before I park my car for a week, tell me what you call a father from the Caribbean? A Trini-dad. A red and a blue ship just collided in the Caribbean. Apparently, the survivors were marooned. Like the rest of the days into the regional Carnivals, when a Jumbo jet ditched into the Caribbean while heading to Trinidad Carnival, regardless of where they reached it was plane sailing from then on. In the meantime, if you run in front of a car you’ll get tired. But if you run behind the car, you’ll get exhausted.
*Tony Deyal was asked the difference between a tire and 365 condoms. One’s a Goodyear. The other is a GREAT year.
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