2 Million Dollar Bills

The beautiful Caribbean island of Barbados is an English speaking country, which like many other countries has its own slang. Bajan slang can be a wee bit difficult to understand and as a fairly regular traveller to Barbados, I have been confused on many occasions when talking to locals that use a lot of slang.

I have put together a list of Bajan slang that I know will be of benefit to any tourists or business people that are travelling to Barbados.

Bashment!- Cool

a Bajan- a Barbadian, i.e someone from Barbados

Baje- a shortened form of “Bajan”

Cha!- an interjection meaning a variety of things from surprise to delight e.g: Cha, dat fella look so good! Cha, in hey hot as hell! Cha, you hear dat new tune!

Don’t watch na face - don’t worry about it

Don’t watch nain- don’t worry about

to flam with s.o: to flirt with someone

to be fagged out- to be very tired

Gipsy- too inquisitive about everyone’s business e.g. cha, you so gipsy

Hard- to describe just about anything good

Lickorish- greedy when it comes to food

To be mekking sport- to be kidding, joking e.g You mekking bare sport!

nuttin/nain - nothing

Pooch - used to refer to one’s buttocks

To be a pooch licker- to be someone who sucks up to people

To reason that - to think/decide that

Safe - Meaning “that’s cool with me”.

Scotch- In Bajan slang the word “scotch” is used when you want someone to move around so you could get a seat. For example, you may hear “Geh me a scotch dey so” (used like this it is considered rather impolite). The more polite form would be “May I have a scotch please?”Other examples are “You want a scotch?”, “Try’an scotch’on dey so”

To run a lot ah mout - to talk big

Whaloss! - normally means “oh my goodness”.

For anybody that is heading to my home city Aberdeen and the north east of Scotland I have recently read an article which will immensely help you with the local language and can be for at the traverlersstories blog  For Those Heading to the Granite City This Summer, Learn The Language!

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Ask most people from any given country what is the best country in the world, and the answer you will invariable get is, ” its my country of course”. Ask a Scotsman and he will tell you its Scotland, ask an American and of course it’s America, ask a Bajan and he will tell you its Barbados I could go on and on.

The point that I’m making is ask the same person, what makes your country the greatest, tell me the reasons for your conclusion? 999 times out of thousand the same person will not be able to give you an intelligent and well thought out answer as to why their country is the greatest.

A typical reply to my question, which I got the other day, from a Jamaican, as to what makes Jamaica the greatest country in the world, “it just is”, bearing in mind they have lived in the UK for the past 15 years and haven’t set foot back in their greatest country in the world since they arrived here. Ok I clearly see the reasoning behind what makes their country the greatest!

I received a slightly better answer as to what makes the USA the greatest country in the world from an American friend. But I reminded him of some home truths, America went to war in Iraqi because President Bush told the world, that they had concrete evidence that Iraqi was developing nuclear weapons, as we all know it was a lie, the truth is that all those brave soldiers that have died so far, have done so because the Americans along with us British wanted to get their grubby hands on the oil, plain and simple. What about those Native Americans that were not exterminated, the ones that survived had their prize land stolen from them and were then forced to live on worthless ground, almost like a Wild West version of the concentration camp. I could go on and on and on!

It seems that most of us are all equally  patriotic about the country which we were born in, or are we all just brain washed by our governments, into believing that what our country offers, is the best that the world has to offer.

I personally don’t think that any country can truly claim to be the best in the world. How can that ever happen, when virtually every country in the world has a government that thinks they know what is best for there citizens instead of actually trying to figure out what is best for them.

The best place in the world is of course “Paradise”, but I’m still searching for it! Does anybody know the way!

For some fantastic places to visit in Scotland read my blog article 10 Must Visit Places In Scotland That Everyone Should Visit

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