May 13, 1996Have Your People Tinkle My People and We'll Do BredieMore words and phrases you must understand before you venture into the South African interiorOne of the most cheerful things about South Africans is the way we take over words from each others' languages without so much as a how-de-do or thank you. If it sounds better in the other guy's taal, then just use it. This happy habit of verbal pilfering puzzles overseas visitors sometimes, but it may be one of the reasons why we were able to pull off the Big Transition two years ago to everybody's surprise but our own. If you use your new neighbor's words, it won't be long before you are chommies. The above observation is by way of an introduction to our latest list of special words and phrases which visitors will encounter in South Africa. As you will see, some are brought over from Afrikaans -- to the definite improvement of the English language in South Africa. Many of our readers loved the first list which appeared in Main Street SA Number One and they sent us their favorites to keep the ist going. And glad we are to have them. So without further ado here is the latest Main Street SA reader- inspired installment of the Famous Cyberbraai Lexicon of South African English to Help Visitors Really Understand What's Going On: BELL: A telephone call, this word can be a noun or a verb: "Give me a bell at home" or "Bell me at the office." It is an appropriate word given the name of the gent who invented the 'phone, but it probably comes from the ringing sound 'phones used to make in the old days. They sound like crickets today but nobody says: "Chirp me at the office." See "Tinkle" below. BREDIE: This is one of the first traditional dishes you will enjoy in South Africa. A bredie is a mutton stew and the name has Madagascar roots. One of the most popular versions is tomato bredie. Another version you will hear much about is waterblommetjie (water-lily) bredie, but it is not as common as people pretend it is. DOP: This word has two basic meanings, one good and one bad. First the good. A dop is a drink, a cocktail, a sundowner, a noggin. If you are invited over for a dop, be careful. It could be one or two sedate drinks or a blast, depending on the company you have fallen in with. Now the bad: To dop is to fail. If you dopped Standard Two (Grade 4) more than once, you probably won't be reading this. DUMPY: You may drink your dop out of a dumpy or dumpie, which is a perfectly-named small, fat beer bottle. In rural areas, many people build garden walls with empty dumpies, embedding them in cement like bricks. It creates a nice, brown, shiny, translucent monument to their favorite pastime. Lots of these dumpy-wall-builders think they were the first to erect such a wonderful thing. They were not. DWAAL: This useful word, pronounced "dwarl", describes the state you may be in after a few too many dops or doppe. If choosing the left shoe for the left foot and the right shoe for the right foot takes a lot of concentration, then you are certainly in a dwaal. If you are lost while taking a spin in your car, you can turn to your companion and say: "We are in a bit of dwaal here." Your companion may reply: "Not we - you!" KREEF: This is the traditional Cape name for the crayfish, also known as the Cape rock lobster. In the old days, schoolboys used to dive freely in the frigid waters along the shoreline to haul them out but now the kreef are strictly protected because of stock depletion and their importance in the export market. You simply must have a kreef dinner in Cape Town. In some places you can buy kreef legs to snack on. ROBOT: This word charms many visitors. A robot is the familiar red-orange-green traffic light and it is pronounced "roh-bott" or "roh-boh", depending on how much was spent on your education, and your level of pretentiousness. Some folks who still insist on saying roh-boh would consider it odd if you referred to Paris as Paree. ROOIBOS: If you don't feel like a real dop, you can ask for a cup or glass of rooibos (red bush). This is a popular tannin- free herb tea made from the Cyclopia genistoides bush which is cultivated largely in the Clanwilliam area of the Cape. Homesick South Africans increasingly find rooibos tea in gourmet stores around the world. They buy it even if they don't like it. ROOINEK: A literal translation of the Afrikaans for "red neck", it is the opposite of what is understood by the term in the United States. A rooinek is not a good old country boy but a good-natured ribbing name for an Englishman, from South Africa's early days. Supposedly, it describes an Englishman's pink complexion on hot, summer days. SARMIE: This is a sandwich and in some parts of the country kids also know it as a "zonk." For generations, school- children have traded sarmies and zonks during lunch breaks. If you are sending kids off to school in the morning, don't give them liver-polony sarmies. They are the toughest to trade. SPAANSPEK: Don't ask for a "cantaloupe" if you go to a cafe looking for this melon. It is a spaanspek (pronounced spon- spek) which translates as "Spanish bacon", probably from the orange color of its flesh. It tastes better when it is called spaanspek and it is a great summertime snack with a dob of ice cream. STILL: This is an extremely useful word which can be used to gain time to collect your thoughts in an argument which is not going well. Confronted by undeniable facts, you can interrupt your opponent by looking thoughtful and saying: "Still . . ." with an inflection at the end of the word. This means you think he is wrong, but you are not sure why. THROW WITH: This endearing phrase, hated by schoolteachers but firmly retained by generations of their students, has seeped into English from the Afrikaans and is often encountered thus: "She threw him with a ripe paw paw." This means Party A threw a soft paw at Party B. It does not mean that Party A also threw a paw paw when she threw Party B somewhere. There is an important difference. You know what a paw paw is, of course. It is a fruit which pretends to have a flavor. TINKLE: If you meet someone who asks you to give them a tinkle, you are not necessarily being sexually harassed. It is a telephone call as in: "Give me a tinkle tonight and we will make a plan." Of course the plan the other party wants to make could amount to sexual harassment, but that is a separate issue. TO DIE FOR: Heard most frequently in the yuppie suburbs of Johannesburg and Cape Town and pronounced "to dah for", this is an expression of approval: "That dress is definitely to die for."
LEXICON 1: Isit? Jawelnofine! |
If you would like to contribute to the list, ag just