Word for the Travel Wise (02/27/06)

In celebration of these two days of Trinidad & Tobago's annual Carnival a.k.a "The Greatest Show on Earth," I'll be devoting this feature to some more Trini street lingo. Keeping it short, sweet and to the point let's start with the first word.

Today's word is a slang word used in Trinidad & Tobago:

Bacchanal - scandal, arguing, confusion or big party

I've heard this word many times in Soca songs and from the mouths of natives but couldn't fully comprehend what they meant by 'bacchanal.' The dictionary dot com defines the word as a drunken or riotous celebration. When asking a friend of mine to use it in a sentence he went more towards the trash-talking, arguing, scandal definition of the word. His sentence was a bit R-rated so I'll leave from this post, but relating to carnival he noted you wouldn't necessarily place it in the same a.k.a category as "The Greatest Show on Earth" or a.k.a "Carnival" category, but use it to describe the onset confusion from a huge event. Many of you probably already knew this one, but I'm having a slow, non-thinking, too much fetin' moment. Forgive me.

Bacchanal can be found listed here in the online Trini dictionary or on Dictionary.com.

Past Trini slang words: bawlin'

Filed under: Learning, Trinidad & Tobago