"Coca-Cola"/"Coke" (in Tanzania) = something easy, a given, no problem

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

   The interesting item below is excerpted from an email I received recently from the daughter of one of my university colleagues (many thanks). The instances of three dots are all present in the original email. Also, just how the semantic development occurred is not entirely clear to me (somehow from the pause that refreshes?).

Gerald Cohen

When I was in Tanzania (TZ) I was speaking with my guide about all kinds of cultural points of interest, and this came up in conversation around a political race that was in progress at the time.  This particular candidate was a sure thing for winning the seat.  Everyone knew it and
called it, "Coke."  I was told that in TZ, when something is "easy," or "a-given...no-problem...of-course"...you get the picture...that often times it's referred to as "Coke-a-Cola."  It's become common thing, one which everyone understands and uses pretty freely.  This has gone on to
the extent that there is even a route up Kilimanjaro, the Marangu route, that has been dubbed the, "Coke," route.  (That should be taken with a big piece of rock salt though...this route is 3 days, and has less than a 50% success rate because the ascent is too fast for humans to
acclimatize to the lower O2 levels above 10,000-15,000 feet.  It's just the shortest route, and the route most commonly taken as a result.)

Cheers,
Kaki Trimble
Tanzania Safari Specialist

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