I was quite young and very naïve when I first stepped ashore on Bequia, and it didn’t take long for me to realize that I had a lot to learn! I wasn’t in Canada anymore, rather on a tiny, remote island in the Caribbean, and there was quite a bit for me to assimilate. The vast differences in food and temperature I could cope with, but the language (although English) posed the biggest challenge. Teaching English at a school where I had a difficult time understanding what my students were saying was a daunting task, and I often wondered how they felt about having such a handicapped teacher! However, the students would be taking exams set in England and I understood the syllabus, so I did my best to guide them accordingly.
Simple expressions often amused me. When I asked the shopkeeper at P.H. Veira if he had certain items in stock, he would respond with either “yes please”, or “no please”. That “no please” response always tickled my funny bone, to the extent that I would sometimes request items I KNEW he didn’t have just to hear him say it!
One expression it took a long time for me to figure out involved the simple letter “F”. It wasn’t just an “F”, rather what sounded like a long, drawn-out eeeeeFF with exclamation and question marks. This “F” would be given in response to a statement such as, “Whew, it’s hot today”. Whoever I happened to be addressing would say, “eeeeeFF!!??”, and leave me wondering what on earth he or she meant. What did the “F” stand for?
This confusion over the “F” word lasted for quite some time. I would say, “wow, this rum punch is strong!” and my drinking companion would say, “eeeeeFF!!??” I got the same response when I exclaimed that the sea was stinking rough; “eeeeeFF!!??”, or that a roti was delicious; “eeeeeFF!?” Not wanting to appear “stupidy”, I never asked what the response meant.
The answer came to me the first time I heard the tongue-in-cheek song “If You See Kay “. The written lyrics seemed innocent, but, when sung, “Ef U C K” took on a whole different meaning! All it took was for the “if” in the song to be sung sounding like an “ef”, and all became clear, I finally knew what those “eeeeeFF” responses meant!
“Whew, it’s hot today”. “IF it hot!?
“Wow, this rum punch is strong!” “IF it strong!?
“The sea is stinking rough today”. “IF it rough!?
The “eeeeeFF!?” responses were simply someone’s way of agreeing with what I had said in an expressive manner, something I had kind of figured out before the “If You See Kay” song, but it was a relief to know for sure what it meant!
I had a lot to learn back then, and sometimes my progress was embarrassingly slow. Today, “eeeeFF!?” is one of my favourite responses – it’s a short and sweet way of concurring with someone else’s statement.