South African – Canadian Dictionary

(With my fascination for language, I have to include this! These were all of the words and expressions that struck me as peculiar during my trip.)

Words:
Baggies - Board shorts
Bakkie (pronounced “buckey”) - Pickup truck
Biltong – like beef jerky—but better! (And not necessarily beef. It’s dried meat of some sort.)
Bleak – Sad (yes, I know we use that word too, but they use it so often, it’s more common that “sad”)
Boerewors/Wors - a type of spicy sausage made from beef or lamb. Generally it is quite thick and is cooked on a braai (see “braai”).
Bonnet – Hood of car, or it’s also what you call a touque
Boot – Trunk of car
Braai - Barbecue (BBQ)
Café - The local corner store selling milk, bread, newspaper and cigarettes, etc.
Chop - Idiot
Chuffed – Happy
Coccyx – Tailbone
Cuffed – Busted/caught
Ear bud – Q-Tip
Fringe – Bangs
Full stop – Period/dot (final punctuation at the end of a sentence)
Jis (pronounced “yes”) - Wow
Lekker - An Afrikaans word meaning “nice” or “cool”
Mozzies - Mosquitoes
Plaster – Band-aid/bandage
Robot – Traffic light (i.e. “Turn left at the second set of robots”)
Sharp – Cool
Slops - Flip flops

Expressions:
Giving someone ‘bat’ – rejecting someone
Howzit - A traditional greeting meaning “Hi”, "How are you?" or "How are things?”
Just now - If a South African tells you they will do something "just now", they mean they'll do it later, in the near future - NOT immediately.
Smoking molasses in a hubbly bubbly – Smoking shisha in a hookah
Touch wood – Knock on wood