Friday, 12 September 2014

The significance of now

There are several types of "now" in South Africa. Oddly none of them actually mean now, it seems. First of all a brief definition of "now", according to google, who know everything.

now
naʊ/
adverb
  1. 1.
    at the present time or moment.





In South Africa, you can say:

  • Now - which means soon, but doesn't actually mean now.
  • Just now - which means "next time I'm going that way" or "next time it suits me", but not now.
  • Now now - which means "pretty much never". In keeping with the previous two, it also doesn't mean now.


1 comment:

  1. This is very true. I was born in Durban but I have lived in Texas for 25 yrs. I went to visit last year and learned this very quickly!

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