Quick answers:
"santimanitay" is the name of a song AND a common Trinidadian phrase ("sans humanite").
"to lime" is to relax with friends, as in "to relax on the beach with buddies" (again, Trinidadian)
"extempo" is a style of competitive extemporaneous singing, where multiple singers make up the lyrics in real-time, often commenting on the other singers as they go...
and... I was at Yoshi's jazz club in San Francisco, listening to Etienne Charles, the trumpeter from Trinidad, who was performing with his group.
Now... how can someone figure out all of that?
First, a small confession. I made the problem easier than it really was. What I wrote yesterday was:
“...we’re going to play santimanite then go lime on the beach to extempo…”
But the truth is that I heard something a bit more confusing that than.
I actually heard "play sandymanity..." When I did this search originally, I found out that it was actually "santimanitay," and so I cut out the first step, which was actually the hardest part. (This is a bit like the problem with mondegreens. See my earlier post on mondegreens.) How DO you go from something vaguely heard to actual term in use?
Keep guessing: In this case, I just had to keep guessing variations on the spelling. Eventually (after about 5 minutes), I figured out that the "santimanite" variant was the right hit (a Trinidaidan song). If that hadn't worked out, I was going to start looking through discographies of the trumpeter and see if I could recognize anything similar. Luckily, I found it after just a few tries, mostly by changing the parts of the word that seemed most likely to be heard as a variant. That is, "sandy..." could be "sanbe..." or "santee..." or "santi..." Likewise, "..manite" could be heard as "..mandite" or "..manditey" or "..manitay."
Interestingly, "santimanite" (or "santimanitay") is derived from "san humanite" meaning (literally) "without humanity," but colloquially, "without mercy."
Once I knew that "santimanite" is the name of a traditional Trinidadian tune, I knew enough to search for "lime" as a word with a Trinidadian twist.
[ lime Trinidad ]
was enough to give several definitions and typical uses.
Now we're getting somewhere. Doing the same trick with "extempo"
[ extempo Trinidad ]
shows us that "extempo" is a style of improvisational singing (often done to the tune of "Santimanitay") where one singer will make up the lyrics as they go along, somewhat in the style of freestyle rap. In competition, topics are drawn from a hat, and the singers go head-to-head in making up verses.
You'd think there'd be some extempo on YouTube, and sure enough, there's a bunch. Here's a nice example from YouTube showing a couple of singers (Lingo and Black Sage) doing extempo from Carnival, 2007.
"santimanitay" is the name of a song AND a common Trinidadian phrase ("sans humanite").
"to lime" is to relax with friends, as in "to relax on the beach with buddies" (again, Trinidadian)
"extempo" is a style of competitive extemporaneous singing, where multiple singers make up the lyrics in real-time, often commenting on the other singers as they go...
and... I was at Yoshi's jazz club in San Francisco, listening to Etienne Charles, the trumpeter from Trinidad, who was performing with his group.
Now... how can someone figure out all of that?
First, a small confession. I made the problem easier than it really was. What I wrote yesterday was:
“...we’re going to play santimanite then go lime on the beach to extempo…”
But the truth is that I heard something a bit more confusing that than.
I actually heard "play sandymanity..." When I did this search originally, I found out that it was actually "santimanitay," and so I cut out the first step, which was actually the hardest part. (This is a bit like the problem with mondegreens. See my earlier post on mondegreens.) How DO you go from something vaguely heard to actual term in use?
Keep guessing: In this case, I just had to keep guessing variations on the spelling. Eventually (after about 5 minutes), I figured out that the "santimanite" variant was the right hit (a Trinidaidan song). If that hadn't worked out, I was going to start looking through discographies of the trumpeter and see if I could recognize anything similar. Luckily, I found it after just a few tries, mostly by changing the parts of the word that seemed most likely to be heard as a variant. That is, "sandy..." could be "sanbe..." or "santee..." or "santi..." Likewise, "..manite" could be heard as "..mandite" or "..manditey" or "..manitay."
Interestingly, "santimanite" (or "santimanitay") is derived from "san humanite" meaning (literally) "without humanity," but colloquially, "without mercy."
Once I knew that "santimanite" is the name of a traditional Trinidadian tune, I knew enough to search for "lime" as a word with a Trinidadian twist.
[ lime Trinidad ]
was enough to give several definitions and typical uses.
Now we're getting somewhere. Doing the same trick with "extempo"
[ extempo Trinidad ]
shows us that "extempo" is a style of improvisational singing (often done to the tune of "Santimanitay") where one singer will make up the lyrics as they go along, somewhat in the style of freestyle rap. In competition, topics are drawn from a hat, and the singers go head-to-head in making up verses.
You'd think there'd be some extempo on YouTube, and sure enough, there's a bunch. Here's a nice example from YouTube showing a couple of singers (Lingo and Black Sage) doing extempo from Carnival, 2007.
Search Lessons: First, when searching for unfamiliar terms, sometimes you can figure them out just by fooling around a bit. Don't get too hung up getting everything just right, often the Google spellchecker will help out by suggesting alternatives. (This is ultimately what worked for me.) Check the results and iterate.
Second, when searching for word meanings, it's often useful to include a "context term" to set the stage. As you know, "lime" has a LOT of meanings. But in Trinidadian use, there's only one use as a verb. Including the word Trinidad simplified that search tremendously.
Finally, as most readers figured out, it's a small step from [ Trinidadian trumpter ] to discover that it's Etienne Charles. A quick search for his tour schedule, and you'll find he was at Yoshi's on Tuesday night, August 7th, 2012.
Search on!
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