New words for your lexicon
LEARN THE LANGUAGE: ENGLISH IS NOT ENGLISH UNLESS YOU KNOW THE SLANG
So, you’ve got a SA-type babalas after getting ‘plotched’ in Wisconsin, US?
It may be a universal language, but you can bet your bottom dollar that we don’t always understand one another.
English, the language of Shakespeare, Byron and Shelley is probably one of the most successful languages in the world.
It’s a living being, it shifts shapes to settle in any environment and suits up in local wherever it goes.
This is why perplexed expressions often accompany conversations where people may speak the same language, but don’t understand one another at all.
It’s between countries and even communities in the same country. American, South African and Australian English are most definitely not the Queen’s Anglo tongue.
In Michigan, US, people “pank” down rubbish into a bin. What they are really doing, is manually compressing junk for space.
When counting money in Australia, a Aus$50 note is referred to as a “pineapple”, and in South Africa, a R50 note is a “five tiger”.
If you don’t know your presidents in the States, you can’t check your change when paying with a Benjamin Franklin or Bennie ($100) and getting a half yard ($50) in change.
The £50 bill in the UK is called a “bullseye” in Cockney slang, with a £100 note referred to as a “ton”. In Mzansi, R100 is a “clipper”.
And watch out if you’re ever a stranger in a strange land, looking for the loo.
In London you might want to ask for the “khazi” on the eastern side of the Thames, while close to Buckingham Palace, it’s a privy. Australians will direct you to the nearest “dunny” (outhouse) in the outback, while in an urban environments, “the loo” is as universal as its utility In South Africa hard work is hard “graft”, while Australians had a hard day of “yakka”, working on their “lappy” (laptop) at the office.
Lunch was a “zaam” (sandwich in South Africa) or a “sanger”, if you’re Down Under.
In America it could be called anything from a “wedge” to a “hoagie”.
Easier to understand is England’s “sarnie”, localised as “sarmie”.
In Australia a prawn is not necessarily something on a plate, but also slang for someone quite inebriated.
Apart from the usual “plastered”, “wasted” and “tanked”, in Wisconsin, US, you are “plotched”.
If you’re in Cape Town, you may be “ge-toor”.
South Africans are lucky. With 11 official languages, words and phrases often bubble into one another: “babalas” is one such word.
It’s originally a Zulu word i-babalazi meaning hangover.
“Kiff” has its roots in Arabic, denoting the pleasure of marijuana and oppositely, “gif ” (poison) in Afrikaans.
Words gaining prominence right now across Mzansi are “tchacherig”, meaning that one has an answer for everything or is quite precocious; when you are “naaring” me, you are irritating me, quite likely because you are so “barkative” (talking too much).
It’s probably because you’ve had a lot of “swaktions” (hard luck) – that feeling that when the perfect pair of shoes are found but, they don’t have your size.
Slang is rich and adds colour to language.
It evolves and new words surface every year.
Some have even made it into the dictionary like “vacay”, “bingeable” and “hangry”.
That’s the beauty of English, human expression and the ability to continue inventing and creating words that match appropriately what we see, feel and experience.