Triniglish|Trinididioms spoken and explained #75
Yuh eh have a pot tuh piss in nor a window tuh throw it out of... Say what? If someone should say that to you what would be your response? Would you be confused or simply laugh because is you may be wondering "what de hell did he or she say?" Now if you think that this is all just a bunch of gibberish then depending on where you may have lived most of your life you would conclude that it is, in fact, just that... A bunch of gibberish!
Yuh is ah Trini | “Yuh eh have a pot tuh piss in nor a window tuh throw it out of...”
Yuh eh have a pot tuh piss in nor a window tuh throw it out of... Say what? If someone should say that to you what would be your response? Would you be confused or simply laugh because is you may be wondering "what de hell did he or she say?" Now if you think that this is all just a bunch of gibberish then depending on where you may have lived most of your life you would conclude that it is, in fact, just that... A bunch of gibberish!
To continue the small talk... However, if you are from the Caribbean or to be a little appropriate, if you are from the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago you may take offense to someone making such a statement about your good name. In Trinidad and Tobago the saying has significant meaning. Usually the reference is made "in reference to someone who has no worthy possessions or responsibilities". There is no way that could apply to you... Right!?
The reference also has a close relationship to the saying that "yuh eh have ah parrot on a stick". This means that you don't have anything that you care much about. When I saw the saying I wondered about "worthy possessions". Responsibilities or lack thereof is easily understood. The person referenced by this statement simply does not care much about anything. My friend Gail from Paramin said, "that is like peeps who have champaign taste with Budweiser money". Well this can also be said like this... "Yuh poor and don't posses anything of value!"
"Worthy possessions" is another story. I don't mean "Worldly possession", OK. Here is something I came across from www.karnatik.com/c1704/shtml. "There are four kinds of worthy possessions: Righteousness, untainted wealth, pure love and salvation." Now take this and add it to "no responsibilities" and you will come up with a typical but classic"Trini" word - "Wotliss" ("Worthless, without ah care in de World").
So that is my take on, "Yuh eh have a pot tuh piss in nor a window tuh throw it out of". So if you don't have a traditional posey and you live in one of the country districts and still believe in Soucouyants and La Diablesse then, you better make sure that you have a window in some wall to toss the pee out. If not, you will have to go outside to get rid of the contents and face the creatures of the night. Of course we are talking about a time not so long ago. We can look back and laugh or cringe but what new sayings are coming out of this modern society that we live in today? Absolutely nothing, but in the time of the posey (or tensil) and latrine we got "pot to piss in nor window to throw it out of".
Long time was nice eh!
Long time was nice eh!
