13 Mar 2017

It goes without saying that the queen’s language is not everyone’s cup of tea; nevertheless, certain English words have been replaced by common words even by the most intelligent of people.

Batswana, for instance, have awkward names they often use in place of the rightful ones.

Readings show that using a word loosely means to use the term in a general way, without recourse to specific or strict literal meanings.

It is custom to name a product by the most well-known brand of that particular product. A typical example is when all brands of toothpaste are called ‘Colgate’ and very brand of washing powder is ‘Surf’, while every kind of body-lotion is known as ‘Dawn’.

Batswana women have come to love and use nail polish on a daily basis; funny enough, they have warmly dubbed it ‘Cutex’ yet Cutex is a particular brand of nail care products that include nail polish remover, polish foundation and nail polish itself.

In security circles, beloved security officers are affectionately called ‘bomachikilane,’ which is short for ‘marching in the line,’ derived from their drill sessions done in line formations before and at the end of a day’s work.

A majority of the younger male generation call their mothers and any older women ‘Olady,’ which is derived from ‘old lady’, whereas they warmly call their older males ‘Timer,’ short for old timer meaning an old man.

The Oxford dictionary defines a bottleneck as a busy or narrow section of the road, where the traffic often gets slower and stops, but in the fabrics industry, ‘bottleneck’ refers to a polo neck; a high rounded neckline made when the neck of clothing is creased over.

The older generation of Batswana who saw the arrival of wireless telephones refers to airtime (cellphone credit) as units, perhaps because of the string of numbers on the recharge voucher.

And saver this; the much younger age group refer to a lollipop, which is a type of sweet/candy, as a stalk sweet obviously due to the small stick it has for a handle.

What about being found resting in the toilets or ablution facilities having read the sign ‘restrooms’ outside? People would think one is not well upstairs for literally taking such a sign literally to mean some comfortable area to rest inside.

What’s more, being asked to make tea for the elders with only an assortment of tea labels such as Rooibos, Five Roses, and Tanganda, among others, available, when actually what was meant by tea was ‘coffee’ can be amusing.

However, awkward as this may be, it makes up a big part of an informal language in Botswana that is used on a daily basis.ENDS