By Michael Buchanan, Northend Agent’s
“Faadn Buy Chubble, Poun Cyaan Cure It.” (Jamaican Language)
English translation: A farthing can buy trouble, but pounds cannot cure it.
Farthing here refer to a coin unit of British Currency, retired over sixty years ago. It was equal to a quarter of a penny. Just like our current penny that is now taking its last chain-stoking breath, its value became so small that it wasnt worth the metal used to make it. Pound, of course, refers to the British Pound.
This aphorism says it is very easy to get into trouble, to put or find yourself in taxing or restrictive situations – i.e. very cheap to buy into, if money was the fee. However, it would take exponentially more resources to buy or otherwise extricate yourself from such situations.
For example, consider a young man or woman blamed or framed by being “in the wrong place at the wrong time”, or a person just making a low benefit split-second decision. Parents and loved ones often have to break their monetary or social or reputational bank accounts for currency to make right or fight the wrongs that seemed to have ambushed their folk. Sometimes reputations are broken even before they were made, yet a lifetime of bad records and red-ink may trail them like a spectre.
Cultural references: Johnny Osbourne (song), Bunny Wailer (song) – “See and Blind.”
