Belly full, potato hab kin.

Traditional Jamaican proverb · taught in St. Elizabeth

Written in Cassidy-JLU

Beli ful, pitieta hab kin.

Word for word

Once the belly is full, the potato 'has skin'.

What it actually means

The satisfied become choosy and ungrateful — full people find fault with food.

How it is built

two-clause parallelism, no linking word

The first half has no verb in it at all, and the second is a complaint dressed as a plain fact, since hab kin only lands if you know the habit.

Where it comes up

This one is taught in St. Elizabeth.

More proverbs

Cry-cry pickney neva hab im right.Constant complaining loses you the case you might have won.
Manners kyai yu tru di worl widout a penny.Respect and courtesy open doors that money cannot.
When bull ole, dem tek hog-meat ti-tie fi tie im.Strength doesn't last — what could never have held you young will hold you in the end.
When kitchen-dresser fall dung, mauga dog laugh.One person's disaster is another's chance — the overlooked profit when the well-off come down.

Sources

The proverb is folk material. The description of how it is put together follows the framework in the work above; the translation and the commentary are mine.

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