Bill, a substitute teacher in Fishers, Indiana, says that while visiting South Africa, he was surprised to hear an acquaintance use scheme to mean simply “a plan,” without no negative connotation whatsoever. In the UK and Commonwealth...
John from Orlando, Florida, shares a story about a trip to Capetown, South Africa, where he discovered that the phrase I’ll be with you now meant something more like “Wait a minute.” The expression now now, deriving from an...
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...
In South Africa, the word spookasem is a term for cotton candy, although it literally translates as ghost’s breath. Elsewhere in the English-speaking word, the sweet stuff is also called candy floss or fairy floss. This is part of a complete...
The months of September, October, November, and December take their names from Latin words meaning “seven,” “eight,” “nine,” and “ten.” So why don’t their names correspond to where they fall in...
A surfer in Imperial Beach, California, wonders who coined the word gnarly to describe waves that are particularly challenging. This term may have originated in the slang of surfers in South Africa in the 1970s and eventually spread into everyday...