Imagine yourself jumping and wining in the sweltering heat of downtown Port of Spain on Carnival Monday or Tuesday, or quaffing a thirst-quenching coconut ’round the Savannah. or just revelling under the tan-inducing sun of anyone one of our numerous beaches, from Toco to Mayaro, from Blanchisseuse to Maracas, or in the sister isle at Parlatuvier, Pigeon Point, Store Bay, the Nylon Pool. or if food is your predilection,getting your fingers messy eating doubles on a street corner somewhere, sampling oysters in the evening twilight. Maybe you want sun, sea, and sustenance all at once – shark and bake like nowhere else on Maracas Bay, or miss Jean world-famous crab and dumplings in Store Bay. all of these truly memorable, truly Trini experiences have one thing in common. they highlight a festive, socially active, energetic people, and they are all built around one word, a word the author believes is even more indigenous and indicative of our people than any other – the “Lime”.
To a green foreigner, alighting on Trinidadian shores for the first time, the lime can often be a source of confusion and misunderstanding. a careful word association study will illustrate the point. Ask a Trinidadian (or one at heart) what comes to mind when he hears ‘lime’ and responses will include ‘friends’, ‘people’, ‘drinks’, ‘alcohol’, ‘music’, ‘fun’, ‘relaxation’, ‘enjoyment’, the list goes on. on the other hand, ask an American, still looking for the tree-houses and grass skirts the same question and after the raised eyebrows he will likely respond ‘fruit’, ‘citrus’, ‘lemonade’, ‘sour’.
In conducting my studies however, I came across a particularly worrying fact – just as many Trinidadians as foreigners have no idea of the origins of the word. even though it is an integral part of the Trini life, most of us continue to live in oblivious ignorance, perhaps never even questioning the derivation. but then we are not all of us fans of etymology are we?
Nevertheless, I am going to put my head on the block and attempt to educate the masses, knowing full well that I am likely to be bombarded with arguments from those with differing points of view.the whole concept of ‘de lime’ was born during wartime unrest, when soldiers, both American and British, were stationed on our island and were a major part of our economy and our way of life. To this day popular calypsos still attest to the fact. That however strays from the topic at hand. In those days, due to poor travel rations and dietary habits, soldiers on assignment were often afflicted with a disease known as scurvy, the symptoms of which need not be repeated. the popular cure for scurvy was increased intake of vitamin C. In the British Navy the solution to the problem was to supply the soldiers with quantities of lime juice, no doubt a bitter pill to swallow for many, but ultimately effective. the juice however did more than cure the scurvy – it also gave the British seamen the collective nickname of ‘limeys’.
Now jump to Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, in the early half of this century. For soldiers sitting on a tiny tropical island waiting for a war thousands of miles away to affect them, nightlife provided much needed recreation. Clubs, bars and discos were frequented by these men, American and British alike. Whereas the Americans usually sported fat wallets, able to pay their way into the more popular haunts, their less financially secure British counterparts, the ‘limeys’, were left out in the cold. not literally of course, because they were in Trinidad, after all. this however did not stop them socialising, and actually may have lead to a much more free, relaxed, unencumbered social gathering – the ‘lime’. Today that is exactly what true liming has become – a casual, open gathering of people, recreating and socialising amongst themselves but without exclusion.
Now you know how it originated, let the liming… continue!
The above article by Marc originally appeared in the February 1999 issue of my short-lived publication Kalypso.