IF YOU’VE travelled, it’s likely there are peculiar turns of phrase that have you stumped.
If you are in South Africa and it’s sunny and raining at the same time, people will say “it’s a monkey’s wedding”.
In Australia, it’s a sun shower which admittedly makes more sense.
The South African saying is a loan from the Zulu ‘umshado wezinkawu,’ a wedding for monkeys.
Saying “I’ll do it just now” means a little later in South Africa.
And “I’ll be there now now” means later than that.
Confusing I know and it’s one of the first things Australian’s ask me after hearing my accent.
If you say I’m going to “donner” or “bliksem” him or her, it means you’re going to hit them.
You can’t translate the sentence directly because it will make no sense.
The words ‘donner’ and ‘bliksem’ mean thunder in Afrikaans.
I’m going to thunder him is nonsensical.
I’m from Durban in the KwaZulu Natal province in South Africa.
There is a large Indian population. Most Durbanites share a love of curry and equally spicy swearing in Hindi.
I learned a decent number of swear words through friendships with Indian folk as a young adult.
But like Afrikaans, directly translating from Hindi to English removes all ire and becomes silly.
I thought migrating to Australia meant all these little learnings would be useless.
I was wrong.
Taking calls from ‘Microsoft’ and ‘Amazon’ is an opportunity to toss out a decent Hindi swear word or three.
The caller’s reaction is usually stunned silence.
I don’t consider it a come-uppance but rather an education.
I’ve learned new Hindi swear words and insults thanks to ‘James Williams from the Microsoft’ and his colleagues.
Travel to the United Kingdom and it seems everyone is concerned about your health.
“Are you alright?” is a question in every English-speaking part of the world … except England.
The English don’t want a rundown on how you are, they’re just saying hello.
So why not just say hello?
There are idioms peculiar to every part of the world because language is as unique as we are.
In Holland someone might say “don’t pull an old cow out of the ditch”.
This means don’t bring up an old argument because presumably, like the old cow, it should just be left there.
The Japanese are renowned for high standards and perfectionism, so this one pushes that belief back a bit.
“Straighten the horns and kill the bull” which means to ruin something by insisting on correcting a minor flaw.
“I’m going to set the dogs on them” sounds terrifying but it means to flirt with someone in Latin America.
Closer to home, I was speaking by text to someone in Melbourne and they kept writing ‘grouse’ as an expression.
At first, I thought they’d misspelled gross and that bothered me.
But the way it was used made that unlikely, so I looked it up.
‘Grouse’ is slang or an enthusiastic expression when something is good.
Our island continent is so big that vernaculars exist in bubbles within different states and cities.
The last one, and perhaps my favourite, is “not my circus, not my monkeys”.
It originates from Poland and means “not my problem”.
I tend to use it when I see people mucking up and someone asks for my opinion.
Not my circus not my monkeys so leave me out of it unless it’s a monkey’s wedding and there’s washing on the line.
