1. You’ve had doubles-with-slight on the spot
Anyone can buy doubles and carry it home. If you’ve never eaten a hot doubles as the ‘doubles-man’ hands you it, are you even a Trini? Talk done!
2. Every product is either Breeze, Colgate or Squeazy… for you
There are literally hundreds of different brand names out there now, but detergent is called “Breeze”, all toothpaste is “Colgate”, dishwashing liquid is “Squeazy”, all tea is “Lipton”, all instant coffee is “Nescafe”, all biscuit is “Bubon”, all powdered milk is “Klim”, all-purpose cleaners, “Pine-Sol”, sweet drink, “Solo”, adhesive is “Scotch-Tape”, cotton bud, “Q-tip” and hand-lotion, “Jergens”. All, regardless of the brand.
3. You know everything
Ever met a Trini who didn’t know something? If you did, that’s not a Trini. A Trini knows everything about everything, or at least claim to. Tell them you’re doing something new, they’ve done it before and mastered it “long time”. No one is better than a Trini. Apparently it’s a crime to be a Trini and NOT know something. “You didn’t know that? Whey you from?” is a typical response, you’ll get from a Trini. We know everything! We better dan Google.
4. You “Schteups” unecessarily
Everyone steups, but Trinis take it to the next level. You steups as if something was stuck in your teeth your entire life. When all language fails you, which happens more often than not, you steups as a response… and that says everything! It doesn’t have to be a negative response! You steups to chase a stray animal away, just before you laugh at something, to end a sentence or just because. I’m sure you’re even steupsing reading this, although you agree with everything.
5. You’ve had Bake & Shark at the beach
The same for doubles-on-the-spot applies to this. Eating bake & shark where the sea-breeze adds to the aroma is not the same as eating it indoors. If you’ve taken your bake & shark indoors, or away from the beach, don’t call yourself a Trini. Just don’t, please.
6. You’ve been a victim of crime
Something was stolen from you, bar fight, good ole plain robbery at gunpoint, house-break-in… you name it, we’ve experienced it. If you’ve never been a victim of crime, you’ve probably never left your house, which is a cage. Even foreigners are more Trini than you because they come here and get robbed.
7. You’ve broken a law at some point
You’ve probably never held anyone at gunpoint (tho some of you have), you can’t deny breaking the law at some point in your life. From making an illegal U-turn to “paying bribe” for your license, even jay-walking, and littering. Because you’ve been a victim of crime, you’ve realised how easy it is to get away with it. We’re not encouraging you to break the law, to prove you’re a Trini, but we’ve all done some sort of illegal activity at least once in our life. C’mon, admit it.
8. You don’t “hang out”, you “lime”
If you’ve used the term “hang out” for socializing, you’ve probably never went East of the P.O.S. lighthouse ever in your life. Trinis “lime”. A group of Trinis socializing is called “limers” and they are “limin” (the ‘g’ is silent). The only time you’ve used the term “hanging out” was for drying wet clothes. If yuh Trini dat is.
9. You pronounce names of places wrong all the time.
“Portah-Spain”, “Sallybay”, “Sando”, “Sah Wah”, “Dego”, “Sandy Grandy”, “Seeparia”, “Gyasparillo”, “Princess Town”, “Cyaroni”. You know all these places without reference of the correct spelling, though technically none of them exist in Trinidad. Congrats, you’re a Trini.
10. You don’t speak English. You think you do, but you don’t.
Let’s not kid ourselves. Trinis don’t speak English. We think we do, it’s listed as one of our main languages, it’s even taught in our schools and we write it, but we don’t speak English.
Our use of nouns, adjectives, and verbs are confusing at best. It “back-tuh-front”, as we say. “Who she is?”, “Ah gone”, “Iz Me”, “We limin”, “I cyar take it”, “Doh make joke”, “Trini to de bone”, “Me eh no”, “it bunnin”, “Yuh Cyah do dat man!”, “Dong d road”, “How she name”, are not phrases found in the English language, yet we use these terms prolifically and understand each other quite well. Any Trini caught speaking proper English are soon branded as “Yankee”.
The English Queen would be greatly disappointed in us. This entire article is riddled with bad grammar and spelling, yet, you’ve understood it completely. If you’ve failed English, you not dumb, you just Trini!
11*bonus. Can’t please ah Trini.
If Trinis have one small problem with something, the ENTRE thing is ah problem. You can give them 10 things and if they doh like ONE small thing, they hate EVERYTHING!
If one piece of fry in the KFC box bad, they want to “ride back” for the employee, demand to see the manager, want their money back and all that drama!
Might as well throw the baby out with the bathwater!
*END
Agree or disagree with these signs? Comment below to let us know! We know Trinis love to comment! We “don’t riot”, but we love to comment our asses off, like it makes a difference!
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