Ramsey Noah

It’s no secret that I love Nigerian movies.  The question though is Why.  That is what I intend to uncover in the next few posts on this topic.  And like a good Nollywood movie, this series will extend well beyond Parts 1 and 2.  Join me, will you?

1: To Learn New Vocabulary

To anyone who will listen, I am constantly ranting about how my Yoruba vocabulary has expanded since I started watching Yoruba movies.  The same is true for the English movies.  Let me give you an example.

Once upon a time, I had no idea what pon-pon (pronounced “kpon-kpon”) was.  That is, until I watched a Nigerian movie, starring Ramsey Noah.  *fans self*

In this movie, whose title I simply cannot remember, Ramsey played the role of an unemployed university graduate.  The only job available to him was that of a day laborer working on a construction site.

During the course of the movie, Ramsey repeated the phrase “cement and pon-pon” so often that it got stuck in my head, and I still remember it today.  Of course, I had no idea what pon-pon was, but after hearing it in that context, I deduced that it was a local slang for gravel.

So, thanks to Nollywood, I learnt a new word, even though I have no idea why I would ever need to use the word pon-pon in my daily conversations.

What similar strange words or terms have you learnt from watching Nigerian movies?

Picture Source: Verastic