USVI-On-Line

You folks on the forum use the phrase "soon come" alot. I've never heard it on St. John during the five times I've been there and certainly not up in the states. From context, I gather it to mean "will be coming soon" and "is coming soon" but not "come soon". Can anyone help with the origins and accepted meanings/uses?

I always thought it was Jamaican in origin - "ever't'ing be soon come, mon". Sometimes I think it's used similar to "manana" - when things happen, they happen, whenever is not important, things will get done in their own time. No??

- Margy Z

Also the title of a Bob Marley song.

Also its referred to in Jimmy Buffett's Volcano song:

No time to count what I'm worth,
cause I just left the planet Earth.
Where I go I hope there's rhum.
Not to worry mon soon come.

We hear it alot in Jamiaca means whatever you happen to be asking about when it will arrive they say soon come. They use the term very loosely, take getting your meal served, you say how much longer they say soon come may be five minutes may be an hour. Thats why ya gotta get on island time when your down there or it will drive ya nuts.

I never heard it on STJ either...except from the folks I was traveling with! We still say it!

I need to get my mind out of the gutter, as I thought "soon come" meant something ENTIRELY different

Can you tell I REALLY need a vacation?

Steve S you must not hang with any of the St. John local folks or you would have been exposed to "soon come" and a lot more English Creole and slang words spoken in the Virgin Islands.

Rafael Lito Valls author of "What a Pistarckle" is a good resource for reference to words like "soon come" if interested in understanding local words and phrases.

I always took it as a "It will be done/there/here when it is and not a moment before then"

People up in NJ look at me funnier than usual when I use that around them to describe the end date of a work project.