Phraseology and Culture in English

devour a book it is realized within a VP in communion with the 
AQUIRING
KNOWLEDGE IS EATING
metaphor. In This lecture was hard to digest, the 
IDEAS ARE FOOD
metaphor realized in this lecture is only interpretable at 
sentence level: The metaphoric status of this lecture (
IDEAS ARE FOOD
) and 
of was hard to digest (
AQUIRING KNOWLEDGE IS EATING 
/
DIGESTING
) only 
become apparent and manifest in combination with each other. Thus, they 
cannot be recovered independent of the network. In an example like Let me 
chew on that for a while we even need to go beyond the sentence level to 
arrive at the interpretation, as the item that, in which the 
IDEAS ARE FOOD
metaphor may reside, needs to be conceptually filled.
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Consider now specific expressions in West African English that are 
generated by the eating-metaphor network in the domain of wealth, as iden-
tified above. At the lexical level, the 
MONEY IS FOOD
metaphor is the con-
ceptual basis of, for instance, numerous one-word items meaning ‘bribe,’ 
BRIBE IS FOOD
being a special instance of the 
MONEY IS FOOD
metaphor 
(see Polzenhagen and Wolf fc. for a more detailed discussion of the con-

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414
Hans-Georg Wolf and Frank Polzenhagen
ceptualizations underlying expressions of corruption). The best-known case 
is the item kola. Here, the meaning ‘bribe’ is fully lexicalized in addition to 
the “literal” meaning in the food domain (‘cola nut’). This is illustrated by 
the following corpus example: 
An unqualified contractor is allowed to bid on a project – in exchange for a 
little kola and a little dash [‘bribe’]. (WCL) 
The item enters the fixed expressions to take kola; to give kola in West 
African English, as in 
When he opens the office door there is a loud, pleased laughter inside, and 
a voice with a vague familiarity says, ‘No. This is only your kola. Take it as 
kola’. (Armah 1988, from Ghana) 
Further examples of the 
BRIBE IS FOOD
metaphor lexicalized in single-word 
items include soya (literally ‘fried beef stick’, considered a delicacy) and 
mimbo (literally ‘beer-like drink obtained from the raffia palm-tree’), both 
meaning metaphorically ‘bribe’. Gombo (literally ‘okra’, ‘okra sauce’), in 
addition to the meaning ‘bribe’, is used for ‘funds’ in general.
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All of these 
items enter fixed expressions: to have eaten soya ‘to have accepted a 
bribe’; take this as mimbo ‘take this as a bribe’; to take gombo (‘to take a 
bribe’).
Items like cold water
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and beer money (both meaning ‘bribe’) are illus-
trations of lexicalized compounds generated by 
MONEY
/
BRIBE IS FOOD
.
Note, too, that via a metonymic extension, beer money has acquired a fur-
ther lexicalized meaning in Nigerian English: It is the linguistic label used 
for the 20 Naira banknote, the standard bribe paid to traffic policemen. A 
further example of a lexicalized compound is chop money, again meaning 
‘a bribe’: 
Were they not, sort of, justified in supposing that the loans were some gifts 
to be taken as chop money? (WCL) 
The fixed expression national cake and the Nigerian English item national
chin chin (chin chin being a staple Nigerian dish), both meaning ‘national 
funds’, are illustrations of ADJ+N combinations generated by 
RESOURCES
/
MONEY ARE FOOD
, cp. 
it is alleged that most government officials go there [the government] to 
chop money like Ola Rotimi’s lead character, [...] who vowed that when he 
gets there, he would not only eat the national cake, but also huge mouthfuls 
of national chin chin! (WCL) 

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