The latest video of an intoxicated Rob Ford features the Toronto mayor at a fast-food restaurant, ranting in a Jamaican-style patois.
Among the words Ford uses is “bumbaclot.” But what does it mean?

We asked CBC’s Dwight Drummond, who co-hosts CBC Toronto’s supper-hour news show and who was born in Jamaica. Drummond says it’s one he wouldn’t say if his mother were in the room.

“My Mom would be very upset if she heard me say that word,” said Drummond, who answers these questions about “bumbaclot.”

What does it mean?

“It basically means ‘bum cloth’ or ‘toilet paper’ … that’s kind of a sanitized way to say it.”

How is it commonly used?

“It’s commonly used sometimes like the f-word or the s-word. If I was hammering a nail and I accidentally hit my finger, you might use it as an expletive then.”

How would most Jamaicans react to the word?

“I’ve never heard my Mom use it and I think people of her generation would be offended by the word. Some of my younger cousins? Yes I’ve heard them use it, and I think that it’s the kind of word that people who refer to as ‘Jaifakans’ when they are trying to speak patois and having fun with it, that’s one of the words they pick up and it’s one of the words they use.”

According to Karim Nazim, who works the night shift at the Steak Queen, Ford was speaking to Jamaicans at the time he was imitating the dialect.