gravalicious

“ Now, as with everything else in life, my “Jamaican touch” is both a blessing and a curse. One of the blessings is that wife, who is originally from Colombia, has really begun to understand me and my idiosyncrasies. But I was shocked when about ten years ago, she began to use words like wet-up—a sure sign that my Jamaican touch had worked on her. In fact, you could say that a sure sign of the “Jamaican touch” is if a non-Jamaican begins to attach the word “up” to words. I swear, Jamaicans have an innate sense of the transcendent because of the inordinate amount of words to which we have attached our own suffix “up”: Fix up, chop up, mash up, bus’ up, bruk up, pretty up, dirty up, tear up, nice up, and tangle up. And everyone knows how Jamaicans love to “big up” themselves….The first time I heard my wife say wet-up, I nearly burst out laughing. Nearly. We’ve been married for more than twenty years and unlike when we were newlyweds, I know what’s good for me. I now keep my mouth shut. But when she asked me, “What sweet you so?” all I could do was to go outside and cut the grass so the lawnmower would drown the noise of my laughter.