By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 31, 2008
The Airports Authority’s emancipation exhibit in its atrium proudly proclaims, “Happy Emancipation” and informs us that “in 1985, Trinidad and Tobago became the first country in the world to declare a national holiday, Emancipation Day, to commemorate the abolition of slavery on August 1, 1834.” As I am neither a linguist nor a logographer, I wondered why the use of “happy” to describe Emancipation Day and in what sense it should be described thus.
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