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Similarly to Feynman's quote on the hole dug in the road, in South Africa, it is also common to simply leave a construction site. However, the comment that I w
by mikorym 8y ago
Similarly to Feynman's quote on the hole dug in the road, in South Africa, it is also common to simply leave a construction site.
However, the comment that I want to make relates more to how South Africans are often late and why the reasons are different to Brazillians.
In South African English there exists a word "now now". This was adopted from Afrikaans, which is largely based on Dutch. The existence of this word is probably due to something that is true of the larger continent and relates to African time. In my words: time does not pass uniformly, rather it passes with events, such as rain, sunset or the latest regime change.
In any case, what "now now" means is either: in a short while, in a (not so short) while, now; or even, a short while ago. The English, as usual, only had one part of the story. In fact, in the original Afrikaans, there exists multiple variations of this term that all have closely related meanings: "net-nou", "nou-nou", "net-net" and "nou-net".
A shrewd observer would notice that we covered all four combinations diligently. The first two terms are almost identical in meaning and correspond loosely to "now now", the second means "by a small margin" and the last refers to "a short while ago" (thankfully, it is always in the past). Moreover, when used in isolation, "nou" can either mean "right now" or "in a (short) while", although you can expect a long wait if someone says that to you.
- Cthulhu_ 8y agoFor comparison, the Dutch "nou" means "now" as what it means in English - right now. "net" means "just", so "nou net" means "just now", or a short while ago.
- mikorym 8y agoThe two terms "nou-net" and "net-net" are the only two that I think have the same meaning in the original Dutch. Would "net-nou" or "nou-nou" make any sense in Dutch?
- mikorym 8y agoThis [1] wikipedia page also makes reference of "net-nou" and "nou-nou". So too does this [2] article, although "nou-nou" certainly is sometimes used to refer to the past tense. I personally use "net-nou" to especially to refer to the future tense, so I am not sure whether the article's comments are historically more correct (i.e. that "nou-nou" should be future and "net-nou" should be past tense). What I can say is that, in context, the words do seem to have different emotional value. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_diaspora_in_Africa#Language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_diaspora_in_Africa#Lan... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_South_African_slang_words#N%E2%80%93Z https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_South_African_slang_wo...
- jwilk 8y ago> Feynman's quote on the hole dug in the road What's the quote?
- mikorym 8y agoHere I am quoting another comment: ' Richard Feynman on Brazil: 1. “That evening I went for a walk in town, and came upon a small crowd of people standing around a great big rectangular hole in the road—it had been “dug for sewer pipes, or something—and there, sitting exactly in the hole, was a car. It was marvelous: it fitted absolutely perfectly, with its roof level with the road. The workmen hadn’t bothered to put up any signs at the end of the day, and the guy had simply driven into it. I noticed a difference: When we’d dig a hole, there’d be all kinds of detour signs and flashing lights to protect us. There, they dig the hole, and when they’re finished for the day, they just leave.” '