Passion Gaps and Pandas

A delightful book on English usage in South Africa, entitled, Say Again? The Other Side of South African English, was recently published by Jean Branford and Malcolm Venter.

Say Again? explains why South African English is so distinctive and discusses words and phrases that have not been borrowed but created locally. They are English, but a different kind of English, ‘Sefrican English’.

While Durban may lay claim to ski-boat, bunny chow, curry bunny, mother-in-law’s tongue curry powder and Durban poison (a potent variety of cannabis), they got the naming of the annual sardine run all wrong as the migrating fishes are actually pilchards.

Jo’burg coined Parktown prawn and others but many of the more colourful locally-derived terms or words emanate from Cape Town.

The passion gap or Cape Flats smile is a slang term for the space left by the extraction of the four upper front teeth by some young people, to be fashionable or to improve kissing.

A gatsby is a submarine sandwich filled with slap chips, masala steak, chicken, polony, fish and salad whereas bush tea is a condiment made from indigenous plants, especially rooibos.

If you order tea in a local café, the waitress will ask you, ‘Rooinek or rooibos?’ Local culinary delights also include smileys (roasted sheep’s head), walkie-talkies (grilled chicken heads and feet) and waterblommetjiebredie.

Second New Year is the unofficial holiday on 2nd January when the Cape Minstrels strut their stuff, the Cape Doctor is the south-easter that blows away air pollution, and the tablecloth is the blanket of cloud over you know what.

Cape Town is also known for its cosmopolitan populace that includes our fair share of bagels (over-groomed, materialistic young Jewish men), kugels (wealthy, status-seeking Jewish women), buppies (black upwardly mobile young professionals), when-wes (those who long for the past), kelloggs (black learners from rich families whose parents can afford to buy corn flakes), born frees (born after the democratic elections), pandas (previously advantaged, now disadvantaged) and even a few bitterenders on the other side of the boerewors curtain in Bellville.

But my favourite local usage is the term applied to the boxed wine that is carried home with dignity by residents of Cape Town’s townships. It’s called a Bonteheuwel briefcase. Lekker suip!

•Mike Bruton is a retired scientist and a busy writer; mikefishesbruton@gmail.com