Nine words British people use that mean something different to South Africans
Language is weird and wonderful. But it also comes with its fair share of challenges. Sometimes the words we use in South Africa mean something very different in other parts of the world. Here are a few examples.
Words can be hard. Words can be confusing. Words can be lots of things. And across the world, different words have different meanings. Even ones that are pretty normal.
Bird
What it means to South Africans: A thing that flies and evolved from dinosaurs.
What it means in the United Kingdom: Moderately patronising word for woman. Could have evolved from “chick”.
Chips
What it means to South Africans: We call crunchy things out of a bag chips, but we also call potatoes cut up and fried in oil chips.
What it means in the United Kingdom: The confusion is thus that only potatoes cut up and fried in oil = chips. The other things are crisps.
Copper
What it means to South Africans: Wire or pipes that sometimes gets stolen.
What it means in the United Kingdom: A police officer.
Fag
What it means to South Africans: A derogatory term.
What it means in the United Kingdom: Cigarette.
Jammy
What it means to South Africans: Something covered in jam.
What it means in the United Kingdom: A lucky person.
Jumper
What it means to South Africans: A person or a thing that jumps, perhaps jumper cables.
What it means in the United Kingdom: A jersey.
Pants
What it means to South Africans: Something you wear to cover your legs and your underwear.
What it means in the United Kingdom: Underwear. This can be incredibly confusing. For eg: South African: I’m just going to wear my pants to the drinks thing tonight. British person: *heavy breathing*
Tea
What it means to South Africans: A nice Rooibos.
What it means in the United Kingdom: Dinner. Most often used in the north of England, the practice of referring to dinner as a drink is the cause of much consternation in households made up of South Africans and British people.
Trainer
What it means to South Africans: Somebody who frequently inflicts pain on you and who you have a love-hate relationship with.
What it means in the United Kingdom: Running shoes.
A previous version of this article stated that “jammy” could also be referring to something being a bit dodgy, like “jammy” knee. That has now been removed as it should have been “gammy”.
Also read:
Expectations vs reality when South Africans move to London
