“Die mure het ore” – het my pa gesê.
“Praat sagter, die mure het ore” – fluiser my ouma terwyl sy praat van die tannie om die draai.
Maar wat bedoel dit? Die mure kan nie hoor nie!
Well, I confess, I take much of what is said to me literally. I often have conversations with people and sometimes they use all these figurative meanings that I don’t get. But I’ve learnt to adapt; and if I feel comfortable with you then I will stare at you blankly and say, “uh, I don’t get it”. When this happens we usually laugh while I listen to the explanation.
I mean how do people even get to know when they are supposed to take something that is said as literal or figurative when language is so complexed! In my creative writing, I am expressive, but speak to me and I need to observe and analyse everything, and often won’t even comment unless it is necessary. My biggest pet hate is listening to meaningless conversations, and most dreadful is when I am expected to participate in these conversations – urgh!
These days I make a point of teaching my son these weird sayings – but the easy ones like it’s raining cats and dogs, pull up your socks, etc. because anything else, that I’ve not learnt at school, I’ll have to look up!
So back to, “die mure het ore”, do you know what it means?
“Die Mure Het Ore” is a tandem blog; 3 bloggers 1 title. Read the interpretation of Celeste and Shelley at their blog links below.
I feel you on the wok literal and figurative meanings. I speak Afrikaans well and love the language but you could lose me in an instant with idioms.
Just die other day someone told me my shoes were “duursaam” and I had no idea what it meant. Imagine the look I got when I asked her to explain. Hahaha… But I’m always open to learning.
Also wok = whole
I actually did Afrikaans as a first language at school (I went to an English-medium school making this possible). Because a lot of my family and friends are Afrikaans it isn’t very difficult to me. If I am stump, however, I smile and nod. But then we also need to remember that there is Afrikaans and then there’s Afrikaans.