browning n.— «Some students once met a radio personality and marvelled that she was a “browning.” This host speaks the real Jamaican patois and they thought she would be “jet black.” Why? Because brownings don’t...
spoon n.— «Police have their hands full on the Gold Coast, not only with violent youths, domestic violence and drug dealers, but with the mentally ill. They have their own patois, referring to deranged people as “spoons’ because...
jiggy-vous n.— « “Jiggy-vous.” That pie slice of French-Canadian patois was a favorite saying of the teenage Gordon Lightfoot. It means “all right.” » —“If you could read his mind” by Steve...
whining n.— «St Lucians usually only need the sound of two sticks beating together to start “whining”—around here that’s patois for “shakin’ your booty.”» —“Cricket carnival can’t cajole Castries” by Chris...
shotta n.— «“Shottas,” a slick but dull new shoot-’em-up from Jamaica, doesn’t penetrate the mysteries of high-rolling, high-risk thug life. It perpetuates them. In the local patois, the title means “gangsta,” and...
fuck-me factor n.— «Ever since Jagger emerged from a mechanical lotus flower in 1975, such audience-bewitching coups have been deemed essential to every Stones tour. They are known, in Stones patois, as the “f***-me factor...