The term “now-now” is ubiquitous Amongst South African, when we tap into their daily use of language. The term insinuates a period of time which will elapse before the given task, time or opportunity will present itself. This a term directly translated from the Afrikaans languages “nou-nou” idiomatically used to mean soon.
“Just now “ (one could argue) plays on the same wave length as now-now. In reality, these terms suggest an ominous future in that they do not give one the specifics associated with when a task will be accomplished or done thus making it difficult to gauge if it will ever materialise.
South Africans can ,to some degree, be regarded as people that sit on the fence when it come to getting things done. Take -for instance- the nation wide lockdown and the regulations that come with levels, nobody knows if it would take us an eternity to reach level one, where life is back to what we are used to.
The perks associated with using the term are solely bestowed on he person uttering the term “Just now”, they have the leisure of time to carry out a task, in this way making the receiver on the other flank feel as if they are chasing after the wind in hope to eventually catch it.
On the brighter side this term is effectively used by brands when implementing their teaser phase during a launch of a product and it sure does resonates with the market.
