Iconoclasm – etymology: Ancient Greek, eikono-klazo (statue-smash). I’ve been listening to, and reading, reports on our recent spate of statue-phobia ngesiZulu recently – it’s been difficult not to do so, what with catchy hashtags and clashing rhetoric and escalating levels of mutual disrespect becoming the order of things. Iconoclasm is tricky business, you see. Whose icons do […]
Tag: isolezwe
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Today’s oddest isihloko
I tweeted this isihloko this morning: Ugibelise obephethe ikhanda lomuntu (She gave a ride to a person who was in possession of a person’s head). This definitely wins the “oddest story from today” prize. So here’s a précis/translation of the story (credit to Themba Ntshingila): Mrs Zwane and her husband, from Newcastle, were driving home […]
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#iziHloko – a note
For those of you who haven’t noticed, I don’t put the izihloko (newspaper headlines) on the blog anymore – to see them, you need to follow @isiKhovana on Twitter, or you can simply search for the #izihloko hashtag. I give points for each one, and give cryptic clues as to how to translate them – […]
Basola ukuthi uzingqongqisile obebalisa ngendlala – 30 points {front page headline} Basola ukuthi uzibulele obehlala ebalisa ngosizi – 25 points {page 3 article} Owesifazane waseNhlangakazi eNdwedwe obehlala ebalisa ngokweswela kwakhe nomndeni wakhe, kusolwa ukuthi uzithungele ngomlilo waba ngamalahle, kwasinda umzukulu wakhe ngempelasonto kusha indlu abebekuyona. Bashaqekile ngohlahlele intombi wabe esezibulala – 20 points {page 3 […]
Today I bring you the news (or the headlines, at any rate), for Wednesday’s Isolezwe (with a points system, as explained before. Front Page: Awalokothwanga amagama ezikhulu kukhishwa okaManase (25pts) 2nd Page: Zinswinyiwe izinhlelo zodado kuSABC (25 pts) 3rd Page: Kubibiyelwe amahlazo kokaManase ofingqiwe (15 pts) 4th Page: Kusinde ingane indoda iklabha unkosikazi wayo (10 […]
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Yesterday’s Isolezwe headlines
Being in Gauteng is sometimes a big disadvantage. Struggling up from the other side of the Linksfield Ridge before the sun had done anything but paint the road red, I arrived at the petrol station in Cyrildene. I went to the usual spot, picked it up, and realised – it was Isolezwe langoMsombuluko (noma lezolo, […]
As usual on a Thursday, I popped in to the Caltex in Cyrildene to buy Isolezwe on my way back from my lesson in Yeoville. It was beautiful driving down the avenues, with plain trees and liquid ambers scattering themselves over the road in the tentative autumn morning light. With the headlines staring at me […]
Headline from November 1st’s Isolezwe: Waphuza ugologo wadlwengula ugogo. Horrific but rhetorically interesting. The phrase contains homoeoarxheia (words sharing the same prefix), alliteration (words sharing consonants), assonance (words sharing vowel-sounds) and it scans as a pair of semi-inverted 7-beat dactylic pentameters: {long-short-short / short-short-long / short} where Greek would have : ‘Raspberry Strawberry Jam’ {long-short-short […]
Headline from pg 6 of today’s Isolezwe Newspaper: Bazalela ukuthola imali yeqolo: ucwaningo Translated, this means: They have kids to get welfare money: research Now, apart from the obviousness of this headline, there’s an interesting bit of linguistics, and specifically metonymy. iqolo is ‘the small of the back; the lumbar region’ – so imali yeqolo […]
This is a column in Isolezwe Newspaper, written by Volovolo Memela. He has a crazy style of writing, and is usually very amusing (and sometimes a bit harsh and biting, in the way of all satire). Today’s Ngeso likaVolovolo had the following headline: Ningabhubhudli imali ngoKhisimusi nibhave ngobhiya bese sinibona ngoJanuwari seniphashile! When translated, this […]
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