Cory in Newark, Ohio, says that while in South Africa, he heard the exclamation shot! used in an empathetic way to mean “that’s so sweet!” or “bless your heart!” In South Africa, the word can be used to express agreement, and in Australia, the...
When you’re late for something in Johannesburg, you can always say you were “held up by robots” and no one will think twice. That’s because in South Africa, a robot is a traffic light. The hosts discuss this and other terms...
off-cube adj.— «In the end they went with the BBC’s ball-by-ball feed on Radio 2000, despite having local commentators on standby to commentate off television at the SABC’s Auckland Park studios. The practice—known as “off cube”...
two-centimetre n.— «“You don’t come here in a two-centimetre (slang for a micro-mini).”…It was here on Sunday that taxi drivers and hawkers joined forces to teach one young woman “a lesson.” Nwabisa Ngcukana, 25...
spara-spara n.— «Soweto youths aren’t alone in their crazy train-surfing habits.…Typically spurred on by whistles and admiring female looks, young train surfers will…run noisily along platforms (“spara-spara”)...
woolsack weathering n.— «I now know that South Africa is, in part, one of the planet’s oldest continental fragments. I also have a name for the ageing process of those jumbled Karoo koppies—it’s called “woolsack weathering,” which...