Stream of Consciousness Saturday – SUP

This week Linda G Hill gives us another challenge to get our free writing going.

“Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “sup.” Use it as a word or find a word that contains it.”

Sup, to an old lady like me means to eat supper or to sip soup.   But, of course, this word is seldom used by young or old these days and the only place we are likely to see it used in such a way, is in well-written novels with a period theme.

My grandchildren frequently greet me with ‘Sup, Gran?”   instead of,
Good Morning dearest grandmother and how are you today?”  Such niceties seldom escape their lips.  They do not mind their Ps and Qs in my presence.  They talk to me about absolutely everything – things I wouldn’t have dared bring up with my grandmother!

I have grown weary of reminding them that I’m old and require them to show a little more respect for my grey hair!   They laugh out loud and say – Get real Gran!

I guess I only have myself to blame.   If I wish to engage them in meaningful conversation then I need to speak their language.

Sup, then, to the young is just a way of greeting each other. So instead of saying Hello how are you they say -Sup.   An appropriate response would be – Same a usual – sup with you?
In South Africa the colloquial greeting would be – Howzit?   In bad English that means – How is it?  In good Afrikaans you would say, “Hoe gaan dit?’  Direct translation to English is – How goes it?  So it has been corrupted to Howzit.

I used to think that I ALWAYS spoke and wrote  The Queen’s English until I visited England and had the locals raise a questioning eyebrow when they didn’t understand a term that slipped easily off my tongue.  Guilty as charged – I speak South African!

I use words like ‘jol’ There’s no better word to put across that you’ve been out enjoying yourself.  I went  “jolling” last night – means I went out on the town.   She’s a ‘joller’  means she’s a party girl.   “We had such a “lekker jol” yesterday,”  means, “We had a very nice time, yesterday.”

Words, that we English Speaking South Africans, have borrowed from Afrikaans, pepper our speech all the time and I love it.  Ja for yes, lekker for nice, vrot for rotten, lapppie for cloth, the list goes on.   Language is what defines where we come from.  Accents do the same thing.  I love Language and I adore accents.

So I will not be offended to be greeted with ‘sup’.   After all, I grew up with Bugs Bunny – and he used it in it’s purest form all the time.

Now he would say, “Sup, Doc!”