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11th
Feburary 2010
Is Kaiso
A Real Word?
 You
know folks it is strange how some songs, articles
and ideas on the world are suddenlymaterialized
out of thin air.
This article came about by a simple correction
of a word which I pointed out to my good friendEzi
which was incorrectly spelt, and that word is
Kaiso. After giving him the spelling the way
I andother calypso writer have done it in the
past, his reply to me was simply this and I
quote:thanks again, but is kaiso a “real”
word or do we simply write the plural based
on what we do with calypso (add es). Well I
sent Ezi a long explanation on this and he was
so, what should I say - captivated by my reply,
that he insisted that I write an article on
this, so that not just him but other would know
the story behind the words of calypso. From
here, I think I will just quote to you the reply
that I sent to Ezi, which prompted this article.
Please see the following:
Ezi, let me tell you something as far as real
words are concerned. When a word comes out of
any country (and many do each year) and becomes
one that is used commonly by everyone, what
has to be done is that this word has now got
to be registered with one of the dictionary
companies (i.e. Oxford, etc.) and they in turn
publish the word and its meaning, which is the
meaning that would have been provided.
In the case of CALYPSO, I do not think this
was ever done, as are a lot of words used by
us in the singing of calypso such as -ramage’
& dingolay, and so I think that Oxford on
their own recognized the word CALYPSO and placed
it in the dictionary and gave one screwed-up
meaning of it. A few years ago, I personally
wrote Oxford and told them that as a Professional
Calypsonian, I felt insulted at the meaning
that they had come up with for calypso. PS:
Now I can see you all grabbing your dictionary....smile.
Now since they had apparently put this word
in on their own with no direction from whence
it came, they spelt the plural to it the way
they felt was correct, and ended up with CALYPSOS.
Of course when we break this word up what we
end up with as a pronunciation is “ car’
lip’ sauce’ instead of “car’
lip’ sows’.
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This my friend
is the same problem we have with KAISO, the
short way to say CALYPSO, which is still not
recognized as a word, but which we calypsonians
use and try to write it the correct ways KAISO
& KAISOES.
Hope that explains why I sent you the spelling
as KIASOES. Even the word CALYPSONIAN is not
recognized as a word..................
So there you have it readers. Calypso is a
musical genre of us Caribbean people, and
it is an art form that we have experimented
with in many ways, and one of those ways is
by inventing words which are considered “slangs”
and which came about because we need to rhyme
certain words and could not find the right
word for the rhyme. First of all going back
to the word CALYPSO. This was the name chosen
by the people of T&T to call the music
that they sang, and so the word calypso was
born. Now tell me folks, with the word calypso,
is it not positive that the plural would be
calypsoes?
And so it is with KAISO, which has not been
recognised as a word yet, and which again
was put into use by the people of T&T
as a short meaning for the word calypso.
Do we say one POTATO two POTATOS, or one TOMATO
two TOMATOS? No, we certainly do not. So we
have our own calypso words, and they are words
that all Caribbean people understand, and
we are happy with them. For when we in a bacchanal
fete, and de music jamming tight, all we want
is a lovely partner to prance and wail, ramage’
and dingolay, in order to have an irie time.
That all folks, and you may want to check
out the meaning of the word “bacchanal”
which is one of ours too.
Discuss
Story
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