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”...
empathy belly n.— «The Cape Town sports journalist recently took on the arduous labours of a pregnant woman by donning a fake pregnant belly better known as an “empathy belly” for the last few months of his wife’s pregnancy...
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”)...
staff riding n.— «Soweto youths aren’t alone in their crazy train-surfing habits.…James Oatway first encountered the local variant, otherwise known as “staff riding,” while at City Press. “I was asked by the picture editor to...
fong kong n.—Gloss: in South Africa and Zimbabwe, a product from Asia, usually believed to be shoddy and cheap. Note: The expression seems to be used both as a count and noncount noun. A similar term is zhing zhong. «Several traders said...
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...