photo credit: centralsq

I was listening to a talk show yesterday in which the moderator pointed out that Jamaica is probably the only country in the world that has a “bad words” law. Well, I’m not so sure about that, but it seems unfair to punish persons for saying some seemingly harmless words, or is it?

The bad words all refer to what Jamaican men consider to be most unclean: a woman’s menstrual period. You see, back in the days before there were sanitary pads, women used cloth (Jamaicans say ‘claat’} instead. The bad word generally has two parts:

1. The first word may refer to the vagina (RASS, BOMBO, PUSSY) or the blood.

2. The second is the cloth (or ‘CLAAT’ in Jamaican).

The basic Jamaican bad word on which all are based is BLOOD CLAAT from which we get these variations:

• RASS CLAAT

• ·BOMBO CLAAT

• ·PUSSY CLAAT

• BOMBO RASS CLAAT

• BOMBO BLOOD CLAAT

There are some exceptions which all refer to the vagina and these are:

1. PUSSY HOLE used to describe someone who is either corrupt, bad minded, grudgeful, weak, acts like a sissy, un-cooperative or any other negative trait.

2. BOMBO HOLE

3. RASS HOLE

4. F**CK (the F word is also used here) but more often as a sign of disrespect like”F**CK you!” which means “I don’t give a damn about you!” or “F**CK OFF!” which means “Get the hell away from here!”

Now, if you say any of these and a policeman hears you, he has the right to lock you up and charge you for “Indecent Language”. Most use their discretion and won’t charge you unless:

1. You use the words in anger.

2. You use the words boisterously.

3. You use the words deliberately in front of the police who see it as disrespect for his authority. In other words you may get off by saying something like: “Excuse me officer, I didn’t see you.”

It is only a minor charge, similar to a misdemeanor in the US but one can be locked up for it at the time of utterance. Over the past few years, the government has become a lot more aggressive with dancehall performers who curse ‘bad words’ on stage. At the recent annual Sumfest stage show, dancehall DJ Bounty Killer was charged after his performance…luckily, he was not jailed.

The question is, should people be jailed for these words? Proponents of the Indecent Language Law say that the language is disrespectful and usually expressed at times of conflict or leading up to a conflict. They say enforcing the law forces people to keep their cool.

That may be true, but opponents of the law say that it is an old, suppressive British colonial law imposed by the ruling upper class against the poorer classes of people who spoke differently from them. The irony is, these words are used as adjectives to provide emphasis to other words or phrases. For example, you may say: “What a blood claat car fast!” which means “That car is extremely fast!”

Whichever way you look at it, if someone is even fined for this, it shouldn’t go as far as recommending confinement. What about freedom of speech?

“Mi a write dis caw mi BLOOD CLAAT internet naw work an’ mi no have nutten fi do a PUSSY CLAAT!” (”I am writing this because my internet is down and I have nothing to do”). It is much more fun to say it in Jamaican.

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