The Stages of Love - Guyana Style

Love has always been - and I daresay will continue to be - a very complex emotion. Love causes the strangest and most unexpected reactions in people. Mighty men have been laid low, and many women because of some secret 'something' have been raised up on pedestals.

Usually, however, the simple Western concept of being "in love" fails to capture the essence of the emotion(s) being experienced by the affected person. You know - the feeling that you can't breathe when he/she is around, or that you want to kill anyone who "... look at she too strang ..." The generic name of this raging kind of love is widely accepted as "typee".

Over the years in Guyana, a torrent of words has been created to signify the various stages of typee. And in keeping with our illustrious oral tradition, the Guyanese typeelexicon can lay claim to being the most breathtaking in the Caribbean.

Following are the stages of typee:

NOTE: I got this list via e-mail from my friend, Barbara Chase. She in turn, got it from ?????. It will remain unattributed until I get the full details. As always, please feel free to use at will, and to mail me with comments, corrections, suggestions, recommendations, cash and prizes, etc.