Robot?

What does "Robot" mean in South African English, it's a strange meaning I don't know.

In South African English slang, "robot" means "traffic lights." The etymology of the word derives from a description of early traffic lights as robot policemen, which then got truncated with time.

On the website Comics I Don't Understand (www.comicsidontunderstand.com), a comic was once posted where part of the joke involved somebody sitting in a car saying "I hate red robots". Since this phrase was spoken in isolation, it sounded like a non-sequitur. Of course, it turned out that "robot" is South African slang for "traffic light", and suddenly the whole thing made sense.

- Kef