A new national dictionary – Part One

Sep 07, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths by GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – The English Language is a rich treasury of words.  Fascinating words.  Words with more than one meaning, and that function like a turtle, as contexts change.  With so many Americans and Europeans now present in Guyana, the Guyanese dictionary of today is a unfamiliar animal to old-timers like me and my peers, who cut our eyeteeth on the tongue of the now departed Elizabeth Regina. The mischievous ones from my time used to have loads of fun mimicking the public-school accents of the top British public servants, as well as those who serve her now tranquilized son in Guyana.

 

Considering all this, plus the local outrages with the language of the world, notwithstanding Chinese objections, I thought it is timely to give a sneak preview of a new Guyana-English Dictionary that I am working on.  It should be mandatory reading in the Office of the President, the House of Parliament, and the Offices of the Prime Minister, Vice President, Opposition Leader, and every media editor.  It may not qualify as tongue-in-cheek material, but it meets any finger in the eye requirements.  Be cautioned that no word is absolute, all definitions enjoy the greatest flexibility, and every word has its own generalities. But meanings are unique to Guyana.

Politician – someone who has been a miserable failure at every job, but given one last chance to continue the trend, and retire with a perfect score (and a national award or an ambassadorial posting).

Political leader – someone who has been a confirmed blight relative to anything that he or she touches; a Guyanese who makes other Guyanese worse; a perpetual loser even when a winner; slang: a conman pretending to be converted.

Legal eagle: a Guyanese lawyer who is encumbered by some handicap that prohibits he or she from rising to his full potential; an air traffic controller’s worst nightmare; a courtyard grasshopper or ambulance chaser pretending to be a highflier.

Sanctity of contract: an International Court of Justice concept now in its market testing and focus group stages; an idea that oil companies give a test run in Guyana to work-out the bugs; an experiment to test the hospitality of its reception in Guyana.

American oil company: an Elizabethan hustler of the caliber of Drake, Raleigh, and Hawkins now reborn as an investor; archaic: a plunderer or pillager operating under the banner of red, white, and blue.

Contractor: a Guyanese who previously made a living as a hustler or a harlot, but failed at both.

Contract: an arrangement between a political operator and a bidder about how to execute a certain piece of work; it is the terms outlining who does what for how much and how the pot is to be shared.

State media worker: someone who is good at listening, open to offers, and knows how to package a product to suit the masters’ expectations; a peddler usually not constrained by Fourth Estate standards; someone who cuts side deals, speaks from both sides of the mouth; in sum, a politician’s dream come true.

Tender award: Guyana’s equivalent of a Red Alert terrorist threat; a national viral contagion; a synonym for political hijinks.

Trusted Guyanese: an endangered species; a local UFO.

Reliable Guyanese: another enigma; refer to definition of trusted Guyanese.

Chinese oil company: ant Ghost Shadow member operating locally; part of a secret society triad.

Indian supremacist: a visionary (depending on who is asked)

African supremacist; a hooligan or a thug (per Indian supremacist).

Guyana supremacist (Guyana Firster): an undesirable, a parasite, a dissenter of the worst sort.

Indigenous Guyanese: anyone who can be taken for a political leadership ride, and applauds the result no matter the outcome.

Guyanese independent/centrist: a feared daytime nightmare, a Creole Peking Man, a universally reviled Guyanese dinosaur.

No confidence motion: the calculated maneuvers of some old con who has lost favour, but gets a new lease on life.

Private sector: a national dumpsite for mainly lowlifes, assorted lunatics, and feeders at the public trough, with an occasional saint thrown in to keep things civilized (and the lions happy).

Union leader; a part-time negotiator, a full-time salesman, self-promoter, and self-helper (it’s the American Way taking Guyana by storm).

Political opposition: a group of citizens working hard at self-resurrection, only to collapse into self-destruction by its own hand.

Ruling party: a synonym for a national criminal conspiracy or a national lunatic asylum.

Richest people in the world: a construction by psychopaths for the naïve with delusions of grandeur; a lowdown, dirty trick put together by Yankee oil companies.

Financial analyst: someone who specializes in charts and tables, deals under the table, while dealing self a secret pile on his or her own table.

Public commentator: a soup drinker with record to match, a gifted brownnoser; some combination of hatchet man-double dealer-self-enricher; a Guyanese regular.

Guyanese voter: a citizen who hopes for the best, expects the worst, and ends up in the gutter with the worst gangsters.

Cost-of-living: a concoction of the people’s imagination; a statistical apparition (all spirit, no substance); an opposition guerilla warfare tactic.

Street protest: that rare platform that is a gathering place for hooligans, political degenerates, and government skullduggeries.

Press conference: an international convention converted to a domestic circus with humans performing in animal roles; the circus master is the master juggler.

Presidential press conferences: jesters in action; leadership trampolines; the intoxicating union of arrogance and insipidity.

Attorney general: a lawman who thinks he is a military man but is really a man weakened by political circumstances; an attorney restrained, like a nun, by silence and obedience

Constitution: any sitting president’s or former president’s autobiography; a bestselling work of local political-historical fiction.

Burnhamism: the best of times, the worst of times for Guyanese.

Jaganism: the time when America came to Guyana and recreated it in its own image; America has never left, now taking over totally.

Corruption: the national religion jointly sponsored by the PPP-PNC axis of evil; PPP, now the monopoly holder; national God worshipped by most Guyanese

Elections: a time of national rumormongering, scaremongering, scandalmongering, race baiting, spreadsheet innovating, ballot box reconstructing; and American cleaning up operations.

This is a sneak preview of the new national dictionary. More coming up soon.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this  newspaper.)

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• Americans, dictionary, Elizabeth Regina, GHK Lall, Guyana

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