WORDS in my mind

Do you have certain words or phrases that you know exactly when you heard of them and knew the meaning? well here are some of mine!

Gubernatorial - this I think every Kenyan now knows - after devolution this word was often said by journalists and so we came to know that the Governors race is called gubernatorial race..google says this word relates to governors particularly in the US - well I guess we have also adopted it!

Vacancy - when I was in class 3 we had to change schools because of fees and so my mum kept using this word, she was looking for vacancies in other schools for us, and I knew exactly how to use that word!!

Guillotine- now now in primary school some teachers had heavy accents (language interference) and one used to pronounce this word off; however he was making reference to that machine that was used to cut paper. Now now - so this machine is simply called a paper cutter since google says guillotine is a machine with a heavy blade sliding vertically i grooves, used for beheading people - yaikks!!

 

Culvert - this is a a tunnel carrying a stream or open drain under a road or railway/ so being on Isiolo Moyale road a lot, I heard this word - and it was pronounced as caravat; until someone corrected me and told me its actually culvert LOL

Volumetric analysis - so we had a young chem teacher in high school and when covering this topic, I listened to her keenly and wrote it in bold red pen - FORUMETRIC ANALYSIS... can imagine my amusement when I came across the phrase in a text book!! waa....this mother tongue influence!!

Diaspora - one of the dorms in my primary school (Mukumu Girls) was called diaspora. I think i knew the meaning of the word much much later!!

Corrugation - back to Isiolo Moyale road....the road was not tarmacked for years and the movement of the car was often refered to as corrugation! the word means the groves/ridges on the road!

Fire - as in to fire someone - so when I was growing up, we had a neighbour whose kids were much older than us...and they had a gardener....and one day the friend declared ' we fired the gardener!' and my young mind was mortified! I had images of him being set ablaze....and wondered to myself why not just let him go as opposed to burning him! much later I learnt the meaning of the phrase...LOL

Anyways, these are just some words that I can pinpoint when i first heard of them!