jawellnofine
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
25
Scrabble Score
12
Letters
2
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
intj
Example Sentences
- "Need to say “whatever”? ‘Jawellnofine’ is offered as the perfectly legitimate South African alternative."
- "...it could just be that I’m in a commemorative mood, but the endlessly useful South African idiom “jawellnofine” has been on my mind rather a lot this week. It’s a versatile Frankenstein term that, like a more finely calibrated “whatever,” can express everything from dispassionate approval to passive-aggressive indifference to reluctant acceptance — or any combination of these at once."
- "...coined in 1978 by R.J.B. Wilson of the SABC (‘My youngest brother was in the habit of saying “no fine” to everything that really required a “c’est la vie” or “that’s the way the cookie crumbles”. It had a nice South African feel to it. I added “Ja, well...” to it to reinforce the South Africanism when I was looking for a title for my radio series “Jarwellknowfine” (my original spelling)’)], an expression equivalent to ‘all right’, ‘c’est la vie’, ‘that’s life’: used to indicate a non-committal, resigned, or ironical response, or parodying South African English speech."