By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

NICO Miller, 19, spent about three hours a day for two months working on a book he has published: “The Bahamian Dictionary: A Guide to Bahamian Words and Phrases.”

The Mississippi State University student, who graduated as valedictorian from Kingsway Academy, is preparing to enter his sophomore year. He studies mechanical engineering.

But cultural preservation, he said, is something he is passionate about, so he wrote a book to bridge the gap between Bahamians and those unfamiliar with their vocabulary.

The book references many popular Bahamian words and phrases, such as muddasick (”used to express any strong feeling”), boongie (”a person’s buttocks or rear end”), and carry ya c***y (”used to tell someone to go away; a general insult”).

One hundred and thirty words are featured.

Mr Miller also plans to build a website similar to Urban Dictionary or dictionary.com, allowing users to change or add definitions.

“I just thought that it was something we needed because there were no real log or history book of our culture regarding the way we speak and also because at Mississippi, I had people who I’d talk to, my friends, and some of the words I’d say they wouldn’t understand so I wanted a resource I could just hand to them and they could see some Bahamian words,” he said yesterday.

“At first, I wrote down a collection of Bahamian words I remembered and I figured out a format of how I’d write them in the book and as I kept writing them and talking to other people, I kept getting ideas for other words and things we say so I added them to the book and just alphabetized it.”

“Some words were really simple, like words that everybody can agree on the definition for, but in other words, I had to consult some Bahamian friends to get a concrete definition.”

Mr Miller’s book is available through Amazon.