About 30 years ago, a craze emerged at KwaZulu-Natal weddings whereby a married woman and a married man would each deliver a speech full of advice for the newlyweds. A popular anecdote regurgitated during these speeches described a frustrated bride who confided to her priest that there was too much bickering at home. The priest gives her a 2l bottle of “holy water” and tells her to take a gulp and hold it in her mouth whenever she feels an argument brewing.
It works like a charm! Our bride returns to the man of God to thank him for the miracle. “That was just ordinary tap water,” he says. “The reason it worked is because you can’t backchat your husband with water in your mouth.”
I’m not sharing this story to encourage “submission” to “the head” of the house; I’m more interested in the cliché about how women talk more than men. I’ve always been sceptical of this; men talk. A helluva lot.
I took a leisurely stroll through the world wide web in search of some answers and found a study that declared women used, on average, 16,215 words a day vs 15,669 for men.
The 546-word difference — which would mean women talk 3.4% more than men — can easily be explained. Men are easily distracted by bums and boobs passing by, and will freeze in mid-sentence. Also, male brains are marginally less evolved than women’s by, I would guesstimate, 3.4%, you see.
Anyway, my point is that some humans just talk more than others. In high school, one my closest friends was a fellow I slept next to in the dorm. If the average man speaks 15,669 words a day, this chap probably made do with 669 a day. And those he reserved mostly for when teachers asked him for answers in class. Or to grunt “salt” during meals. Never, “Will you pass the salt?” Too many words.
If the average man speaks 15,669 words a day, this chap probably made do with 669 a day
He loved tennis as much as I did, but he seldom played. We made our own calls during matches and he didn’t want have to waste his daily 669 quota yelling: “Out!” and “40-love!”
About once a semester he would save up enough words to have a two-hour midnight chat with me, about his family life, his crushes, hopes and dreams. He became a medical doctor despite being advised that in computer science or engineering talking is optional.
The KwaZulu-Natal colloquialism for a woman who talks too much, especially within a polygamous set-up, is impempe (Zulu for the whistle that referees use). I’m married to a woman who, like my dorm mate, uses words extremely sparingly. My suspicion is that she speaks so little so she can lend me about 8,108 words (half her quota) to add to mine.
And I am grateful. I’m a some-time radio presenter, talk-shop panellist, MC and podcaster. I suspect that when her colleagues or my in-laws inquire about my wellbeing, she often shrugs and responds: “Hhayi, iyaphila impempe yami bandla.” (My whistle is OK.)
About apples and trees and all that, my second-born, Vumezitha, has just finished his 90 hours of internship at the UJ FM campus radio station. A new mpempe might be emerging. When the boy was about three, I found my wife in a heap of exhaustion on the couch.
“Have you been on the Trojan stationary bike?’” I asked.
She pointed at Vumezitha and said: “No. I’ve been listening to Radio Vum-vum all afternoon.”
“Thank God you’re not married to Mbalula then,” I replied.
I confess t I spent 15 minutes contemplating which mpempe to use in the punchline: Mbalula, Julius, Bheki Cele, Mmusi, Steenhuisen, Gwede or Floyd. I went with Mbaks because I wanted you to read this last bit in his voice.
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