On a recent trip to Orlando I saw a comment by Sam Roberts, son of former Guyana Police Chief “Skip” Roberts, on the widespread Caribbean practice of pinning nicknames on people, especially males, and he noted the almost amiable nature of the practice in that, most of the time, nobody takes offence to the monikers even when they could be seen as disparaging. Sam’s comment is apt. For some reason, nicknames in the Caribbean, even when they morph into some of the most degrading terms, particularly the ones aimed at men, do not cause even a ripple – the names are used in a teasing or jocular way and are accepted by user and recipient alike in a circle of friends or acquaintances. Indeed, in Guyana, these terms are often referred to as “fond names” carrying the message that, derogatory as they may sound, they are used almost as an embrace and applied, generally, by friends to friends.
Usually, a nickname is based on some reality, some truth, so that the late Jack Henry, one of my early Vreed-en-Hoop pals, had become labeled in our inner circle of five as “Fowl Thief”: at a feedup for me on my birthday, the chicken in the curry, had been supplied by Jack, from his father’s own pen, without his father’s knowledge. It is true, however, that nicknames can sometimes go over the edge – “Bound Fuh Drunk” for example – so that I was taken aback in my time at Saints to learn that one of our
