Editor’s Note

As a kid I heard my mom use the following phrase countless times to placate me when an older, male cousin had said something to upset me: “Sticks and stones can break your bones, but words can never hurt you.” Boy was she wrong. Words can destroy you! I had buttons, and he knew exactly how to push them. His words had power, and none of my mother’s platitudes could to save me from them. Sometimes we’d brawl in the garden — he’d pin me down on the grass and suspend a thick rope of spittle above my face, sucking it back into his mouth the moment before it dripped onto my tightly closed lips. Torture indeed, but nothing as tormenting as his words could be.

But I tortured him too … coercing him into a game I was determined to play. I wanted us to be in our own gang of two with its own special language only we understood.

It wasn’t easy. My ambitions were vast — we were going to make up our own dictionary, a simulacrum of every word in it. “Daas-op-op” in our language meant “grasshopper”, one from our first list that’s stuck with me.

I remember his endless eye rolls as we sat for hours while I forced him to help me make up words and then learn them by heart. With hindsight, it’s no wonder he wanted to kill me.

After a few hundred words we gave up. It’s not so easy making up your own language.

Language, it seems, is recalcitrant to twosomes. It needs critical mass to thrive. It’s not interested in being secret, though it does enable you to feel like a member of a group or gang or tribe. You’ve a much better chance of acceptance if you can speak the language — or better yet the slang — of a particular set. If you’ve learnt the lingo you’re extra lit. The state of the world right now demands new words to describe it, so Jes Brodie came up with a few to help us navigate these strange days. If everything seems weird and unusual to you right now, read on and she’ll help you know the feeling.

For comment, criticism or praise, please write to nagela@sundaytimes.co.za