shrubbing

shrubbing
 n.— «A Kenyan architect who stalked and then threatened to rape an American volunteer was sentenced to flogging—a common form of punishment for petty offenders in Botswana—after he pleaded guilty to common nuisance charges in a Botswana court. Barak Ageda, 32, described by the media in Botswana as “lovesick,” admitted that he harassed Ms Heidi Yvonne Epple, 43, for a year and a half after she refused his advances. Back home in Kenya, his sentence, having been transmuted through a process known as “shrubbing,” caused much mirth among listeners to a vernacular radio station, who were told the man had been sentenced to do “frog jumps.”» —“Flogged abroad, croaked at home” East African (Kenya) July 3, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)

Join the discussion

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Further reading

Eating Off the Mantle

Martha recently found a 1938 letter that her grandfather sent to the local police chief in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. It concerns a suspected thief who her grandfather thought might be persuaded to confess because, he wrote,, the young man surely...

Throw the Book at Someone

Katie in Kalamazoo, Michigan, wonders about the expression throw the book at, meaning to “try every means possible.” Did it originally involve literally throwing books? It’s just a metaphor in which the book refers to “the...