boda-boda
n.— «It costs a mere 20 shillings (about R3) to travel across Kisumu on a bicycle; matatu rates are double that. And, bikes are everywhere—the ringing of their bells and the crunch of wheels on dirt the dominant sounds in towns and villages lining the brown lake. Locals call them boda bodas; the name is a play on the English word “border,” explains Charles Omondi, a bicycle-taxi owner in Kendu Bay. “Some years ago, the bikes started coming into Kenya from Uganda, at the border. So people started calling them boda bodas,” he laughs.» —“From petrol power to pedal power” by Darren Taylor in Nairobi, Kenya Mail & Guardian (Johannesburg, South Africa) May 1, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Quiz Guy John Chaneski maintains that lots of nation’s names are hiding in plain sight during our everyday conversations, and he has a puzzle to prove it. For example, if he says, “Here on the farm, we don’t drink coffee. We just take the dry...
A listener adds to our collection of slang used by RV enthusiasts. When she’s not in her sticks and bricks–that is, her brick-and-mortar home in Michigan–she’s driving around in her motor home chasing 70, which in the RV community means “trying to...