Stet

First they came for the verbs and I said nothing, for verbing weirds language. Then they arrival for the nouns and I speech nothing, for I no verbs.

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Linguist with wanderlust,
From the hills of New Guinea to the halls of the Sorbonne,
From the beaches of Bassam to the fields of Friesland,
From the catacombs of Rome to the Blue Mountains of Jamaica.
From the heather of the Veluwe to the dust of Dakar ...

Currently resident in the Land of Sea with a small tribe of kids and Mr B.

Future anterior

Here’s another neologism for you — premem — similar to my previous new word, and also triggered by one of my children. It means “pre-memory”, and while sounding like something out of a Philip K. Dick story, my meaning refers to a more intimate epiphany, one of those “golden moments” when you can already visualize, at

Continue reading Future anterior

5 comments to Future anterior

Stunner

November 3, 2007 at 11:29 am · Reply

Very nice photo and great processing!
grannyp

November 6, 2007 at 5:27 am · Reply

Photo itself looks like a premem – more than just the spirit of it. Love the idea/picture anyway if not the word itself which is ugly. Can’t someone come up with a better one?
grannyp

November 6, 2007 at 5:28 am · Reply

On the other hand….as a neologism it does nicely…
BarbadosInFocus

November 7, 2007 at 12:47 am · Reply

Really good work on this image…well done…
Luxury Freedom

August 31, 2010 at 5:22 pm · Reply

When considering magnificent high end vehicles, the Europeans maintain the crown, due to such well-known brands as Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Koenigsegg, and Lamborghini. Enjoy high quality, benefit from life.

Postlapsarian PNP: After the fall from grace

The recent general election in Jamaica was a close run between the People’s National Party, in power for 18 years, and the Jamaica Labour Party. While at least one of the sixty seats remains to be decided by the courts, the JLP still managed to squeeze past the incumbents with a four-seat majority.

Politically motivated violence had

Continue reading Postlapsarian PNP: After the fall from grace

4 comments to Postlapsarian PNP: After the fall from grace

Stunner

September 29, 2007 at 7:59 pm · Reply

Those anagrams are rather interesting. I a m so happy that the damn election season is almost over! Just need to get rid of the post election squabbles, like the recounts and the supporters clash at the opening of parliament.
Caribbean Colors

October 1, 2007 at 2:07 pm · Reply

Are you hopeful for the political future of Haiti? I found your anagrams very clever. We’re less than 6 months from our general here in Belize and things are starting to heat up. They call the big political rallies “Love Fests”. SO much money is thrown around and spent lasciviously that you tend to forget we’re a 3rd world country.
Caribbean Colors

October 1, 2007 at 2:09 pm · Reply

Derrr… I mean are you hopeful for the political future of Jamaica? I must have had my head stuck on the photos below thinking they looked like Haiti in some instances.
Zinnia Cyclamen

October 6, 2007 at 7:36 am · Reply

Oh look, you’re back! Hello, I missed you. Zinnia Cyclamen: Zinnia Man Cycle (oh yeah baby), Mean Zany Clinic (a medical vocation missed), A Nicely Zinc Man (well how do you know I’m a woman anyway?), but I think my favourite is Cynic Inn Ma Zeal. Then again, there’s always Nil In Zany Mecca, but I might be up for a fatwa for that one.

Two cultures clash

Talk of banning the “dance of death” is still doing the rounds here in Kingston, or at least it was this morning at the hairdresser’s. The dance in question is of course the “Dutty Wine”. In a country where new dance moves pop up every week, the Dutty Wine has shown unusual endurance since its first

Continue reading Two cultures clash

7 comments to Two cultures clash

Cranky Putz

November 8, 2006 at 9:39 am · Reply

Read this article a while ago, have a little blurb on my site. Feel bad for the girls family, but not 100% convinced that her death was caused by a dance. I can just image the Yute she was dancing with, walking around going, don’t make me kill ya with the dutty wine now…(I know, I know bad joke)
plk

November 8, 2006 at 3:16 pm · Reply

PARASIGHTS is a beauty
Global Voices Online » Blog Archive » Jamaica: Cultures clash over “dutty wine”

November 8, 2006 at 11:05 pm · Reply

[...] Ria Bacon comments on the clash of cultures taking place in the discussions surrounding the ultra-popular “dutty wine” dance since moves associated with the latter allegedly caused the death of a young woman. She also links to a YouTube video and says that there are 2000+ similar examples to be found on the video-sharing site. Georgia Popplewell [...]
eemanee

November 11, 2006 at 10:25 am · Reply

there was a story in yesterday’s paper of a bajan girl who went to Jamaica to learn how to do the dutty wine correctly. i don’t think the story deserved 2 pages but obviously the Dutty Wine has a life and energy of it own.
Marisa

November 14, 2006 at 3:22 pm · Reply

Hi, Michele sent me today. I chose “stet” because no-one knows what that term means and I’m such an editing nerd. Thanks for the lesson on the Dutty Wine, I had no idea of the dangerous nature of this dance!
kia

December 18, 2006 at 5:59 am · Reply

I followed the link from my posting on yours and enjoyed your story.

What has struck me more in the days since the death is the obvious division in cultures between the middle class, educated newspaper journalists, and the semi-literate dancehall fans. The remove is such that some were not even aware of the song and dance until the recent death.

Well, one of the reasons is practical. Middle-class people don’t go to the sorts of clubs and events where this dance happens. Not at first, anyway. For one thing, they are likely to assume that such places are dangerous.

Street culture has been migrating upwards in Jamaica since about the 1960s. Over the years the internal barriers — prejudices, conventions, etc., — to reggae and dancehall culture and all its various forms are much more permeable than they were then. Even before I left Jamaica in my teens in the mid-late 70s I knew, and experienced, a change in Kingston speech, I was speaking a whole new middle-class slang that was full of street lamguage, to the unutterable dismay of my parents.

But the various social stigma associated with stuff like “dutty wine” are considerably reduced, among the educated middle class, from what they would once have been.

So now it’s pretty much just the churches that do this sort of moral policing. I don’t mean to suggest that there aren’t class barriers still, but these are much less to do with subtle things like syntax and “slackness” than they are to do with material status.
Clark

March 15, 2010 at 6:28 pm · Reply

I’m reluctant that the Pit bull requirements a particular type of operator…these pet dogs, no matter how ‘trusting’ still have teeth, are still creatures with out moral concepts and when they DO bite, won’t allow go. As in all creatures…some often be more suseptable to instinctual behavior and time and time again, this breed tends to do just that.

Writing wrongs

Taking a break from the political meltdown here in Jamaica, I got a tip-off from a fellow editor in Rome about a new term for spellcheck mis-corrections: The Cupertino Effect.

The origin of the term, coined at the Language Log, is from the the common mistyping of “cooperation” as “cooperatino”. Bizarrely, certain spellcheckers offer “Cupertino” as a

Continue reading Writing wrongs

3 comments to Writing wrongs

Mathieu

October 11, 2006 at 7:24 am · Reply

I write a lot of technical document these days, and I’ve run into some issues with auto-correction before, altho nothing so funny.

The one time we submited my work to a technical writer for review, her main gripe was my tendency to use British spellings (colour for color), and she suggested I set my word processor to US language.

In retrospect, a few well-placed copulations might have been welcome, just to tweak her a little.
Mad Bull

October 13, 2006 at 5:59 am · Reply

>> Itâ€™s obvious people are fed up with the rotten state of affairs, but will the
>> discontent evident in newspapers and radio call-in shows be transformed
>> into something more concrete?

Probably not. Pitty, innit?
Stet » Blog Archive » Cupertino Effect strikes again

October 18, 2006 at 12:20 am · Reply

[...] What is the Cupertino Effect? [...]

Amor vincit omnia fe true

We have 125 channels on TV.

I watch very little and very irregularly: The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and, the main advantage of so many channels, reruns of great US comedies such as Seinfeld, Frasier and vintage Cheers. Yet it’s one of the mysteries of the universe that I seem condemned to see the same six

Continue reading Amor vincit omnia fe true

10 comments to Amor vincit omnia fe true

Revolution island

May 12, 2006 at 3:04 pm · Reply

Heard about those movies. Saw my son’s preschool teacher perusing a list of them. Bootleg copies are going around like wildfire.
charles

May 12, 2006 at 8:41 pm · Reply

These movies are the hottest thing in Jamaica right now.
plk

May 13, 2006 at 6:02 pm · Reply

I am a bit disappointed that you did not find out in which European coountry the Mercedes was stolen.
Mad Bull

May 14, 2006 at 10:51 am · Reply

plk, I am sure there are a few ppl in Nigeria who could actually BUY a Benz, especially an old one like that. Nice little movie clip, Ria. Was the final heartwarmer the “Koldsweat”?
Ria

May 15, 2006 at 8:49 am · Reply

You got it!
plk

May 18, 2006 at 2:10 pm · Reply

Mad Bull: My comment re stolen cars is based on the fact (as reported in last weeks papers) that legit used car importers on the west coast are going belly-up because they cannot compete with stolen car dealers. The legit people have called on their own and on European government agencies to step up law enforcing.
evelyn

May 23, 2006 at 7:23 pm · Reply

You can believe what the western press wants you to believe. Nigeria is the no. 5 oil producer in the world. There is money in that country and a lot of luxury cars. The problem is that it is in the hands of only 10% of the elite. Yall can keep feeding on white folks propaganda.
Ria

May 23, 2006 at 10:07 pm · Reply

Your point is unclear, Evelyn.
Sola

June 13, 2006 at 11:34 am · Reply

Her point is actually very clear in relation to plk’s miseducated comments above. Whatever country he lives in may not even have enough luxury cars to rival the ones in Nigeria. Instead of him commenting on the Nigerian movies, he insinuates Nigerians steal cars. If we wanted to steal cars, you think it would be these 20yr old Benz types? Stop swallowing everything they feed you. Conduct your own investigation so you can sound a little informed when you comment in public places.
Ria

June 13, 2006 at 7:59 pm · Reply

I agree that his first comment was misplaced and insensitive; however, he did try to clarify himself in his second comment: Nigerian car importers are complaining to the Nigerian government and the EU about the high number of illegal imports. Nigerians are complaining, with justification, about other Nigerians. Nothing to do with “white folks propaganda”.

Stet

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