Most Popular Mangled Expressions in Nigerian English

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Farooq A. Kperogi

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Jul 17, 2011, 12:05:22 PM7/17/11
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Sunday, July 17, 2011

Most Popular Mangled Expressions in Nigerian English

By Farooq A. Kperogi

Let me start by pointing out that mangled expressions (as some people derisively call expressions that are distorted from their “original” idiomatic forms) abide in every variety of the English language. They aren’t exclusive to Nigerian English.

In native varieties of the English language, some mangled expressions have become so popular and so widely used that they have acquired sufficient social prestige to constitute new standards. Examples are “first off” (which is the mangled form of “first of all”), “most everyone” (which is the distorted form of “almost everyone”), “out the window” (where the preposition “of” is dispensed with), etc.

It’s not only the lexical properties of expressions that are often the victims of mangling; popular sayings and aphorisms are also routinely distorted by native speakers. For instance, the popular expression “blood, sweat and tears” is actually a distortion of Winston Churchill's famous wartime speech to the British nation. His exact words are: “blood, toil, tears, and sweat.” The expression “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” is a distortion of “a little learning is a dangerous thing.”

Similarly, the expression “there is method in my madness” is a misquotation of a passage from Shakespeare's Hamlet where Polonius observes: “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.” Likewise, the expression “Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink” is a misquotation of British Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge's line in Ancient Mariner. In it he writes: “Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.”

But we have all got used to these misquotations—or are not even conscious of them as distortions in the first place—because they are committed by the most educated people in the English-speaking world, and have been passed down to us. So we in Nigeria are only adding to a list that is already too long, except that we do not enjoy the same privilege as native speakers of the English in having our own mutilations conferred respectability over time. 

Our deviations are forever condemned to being socially stigmatized as aberrant because we lack the cultural and social capital of native speakers of the language. My object in pointing out the following popular mangled expressions in Nigerian English is not to ridicule them but to simply call attention to them.

1. “Be rest assured.” The fixed English idiom that this Nigerian English expression apes is “rest assured.” It means to be certain. But it is rare in Nigerian English for the expression to be rendered without the pointless and intrusive “be.” The following sentence is an example of how this phrase regularly occurs in popular Nigerian English: “You should BE rest assured that I will not disappoint you.” The “be” in the phrase is superfluous. Native speakers of the English language don’t include it.

I can’t locate the source of this distortion, except to point out that what grammarians call the habitual, uninflected “be” (that is, where the verb “to be” doesn’t change form under any circumstance) occurs a lot in Nigerian Pidgin English (such as in the expression “I be don see am today,” i.e., “I have seen him today”), in African-American Vernacular English (such as in the expression “she be mean to me,” i.e., “she is mean to me”) and in many English-based pidgins and creoles. I am tempted to argue that the addition of “be” before the idiom “rest assured” in Nigerian English is attributable to the influence of Nigerian Pidgin English. Or, perhaps, it is inspired by a false analogy from expressions like "be careful," "be nice," etc.

2. “I appreciate.” When I lived in Nigeria, this expression was not part of the repertoire of popular speech. Its widespread use in contemporary Nigerian English must be the result of the relentless cross-border linguistic flows that the Internet has enabled. The phrase is clearly a poor mimicry of “I appreciate it,” the alternative expression for “thank you” in America, Canada, Britain, and other native-speaker linguistic climes. Without the addition of “it,” “this,” or “that,” the phrase can only mean that the speaker or writer habitually shows appreciation but for nothing in particular; it does not convey the sense that he or she is thankful or grateful for a specific thing. The first time someone said “I appreciate” to me in Nigeria, I couldn’t resist asking “you appreciate what?” As you can probably tell, that expression drives me crazy!

3. “To be at the safer side.” The Standard English idiom that this expression distorts is “to be on the safe side.”  It means to be cautious or safe—or to err on the side of safety or caution.  This seems to me like a sloppy distortion because it violates two basic grammatical rules. First, “on” is the preposition that almost always co-occurs with the noun “side” when it signifies location (e.g. "he is on my side"). Second, the word “safer” is a comparative adjective and comparative adjectives are used only when two things are being compared. Plus, comparative adjectives always co-occur with the conjunction “than,” except in situations where the comparison is apparent.

4. “He is in soup.” The standard rendering of this idiom is “in the soup.” Without the definite article “the,” the expression would mean something other than its conventional idiomatic meaning, that is, in trouble or experiencing difficulty. “He is in soup” could mean that someone has literally fallen into a pot of soup. One of the characteristics of idioms is that their grammatical properties are often fixed and unchangeable. This quality is called grammatical fixity, as I’ve pointed out many times here.

 Nigerian newspapers are clearly to blame for the mangling of this idiom. One of the rules of (daily) newspaper headline writing is that articles (i.e., the words “the,” “a,” and “an”) should always be dispensed with. In line with this rule, copyeditors in Nigerian newspapers cast headlines about people being “in soup,” which is perfectly legitimate. The problem is that the general populace has now adopted and internalized this “headlinese” as if it were conventional, everyday English.

5. “You cannot eat your cake and have it.” Native speakers of the English language usually render this expression as “you cannot HAVE your cake and EAT it.” The sense the expression conveys is that once you’ve eaten your cake, you can’t have it again. I am the first to admit that this sounds rather illogical. I can have my cake and then eat it afterwards. But language, especially the English language, is not often governed by logic. The history of this idiomatic proverb particularly proves this point.

When the expression first appeared in the English language in 1564 in John Heywood’s collection of English proverbs titled “A dialogue Conteinyng the Nomber in Effect of All the Prouerbes in the Englishe Tongue,” it was rendered as “wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?” The modern form of the expression, where the “having” of the cake precedes the “eating” of the cake, started only in 1812, according to linguistic historians. So, in a way, Nigerians are more faithful to the original rendering of the expression than modern native English speakers. I call this the mangling of a mangled expression!

However, Nigerians also tend to substitute “cannot” in the expression with “can never.” I hold Evi Edna Ogoli’s 1980s hit song “You Can Never Eat Your Cake and Have It” responsible for this.

6. “More grease to your elbow.” The correct form of this peculiarly British English expression is “more power to your elbow.” It is used to praise people and wish them continued success in what they do. The expression came into British English by way of Irish English. Although it has lost currency in contemporary British English, it is still actively used in Australian, Indian, and Pakistani English. The usual form of the expression in American (and increasingly British) English is “more power to you!”

It is still a mystery to me why Nigerians have chosen to delete the word “power” from the expression and replace it with “grease.” No other variety of the English language (except, perhaps Ghanaian English which shares so many similarities with Nigerian English) lubricates the expression with “grease.” I once speculated that the mangling arose out of a false attraction to the expression “elbow grease,” which means “hard work.” But, upon deeper reflection, I am dubious of the plausibility of my own speculation particularly because the expression “elbow grease” is completely absent in Nigerians’ everyday English. That leaves me to think that it’s probably derived from the profusion of oil metaphors in our everyday speech as a consequence of our status as an oil-producing country. But why is the idiom not rendered as “more oil to your elbow” since oil is a more usual word than grease? Well, I don’t know.

7. “In affirmative.” The definite article “the” is an integral part of the lexical properties of the expression that signifies a “yes” reply. So it should read “in THE affirmative.” In Nigerian English, especially in Nigerian media English, the article is almost always omitted.

8. “Benefit of doubt.” The proper rendering of this expression in native varieties of the English language is “THE benefit of THE doubt.” Notice that there is the article “the” before “benefit” and another before “doubt.” Of course, the omission of the articles is not sufficient to confuse native speakers of English, but it does indicate insufficient proficiency in the language.

9. “Bite more than you can chew.” The appropriate idiomatic form of this expression is “bite OFF more than you can chew.” It means taking a challenge that is far greater than one’s capabilities. However, I will admit that the omission of the “off” in the idiom is not peculiarly Nigerian. Many non-native speakers and writers also omit it.

10. “It doesn’t worth it.” This is a distinctly Nigerian mangling of the expression “it’s not worth it.” The error arises, I suspect, from misrecognizing the word “worth” as a verb when, in fact, it is an adjective in the sentence. If you won’t say “she doesn’t nice” because “nice” is an adjective, not a verb, you also can’t say “it doesn’t worth it” because “worth,” like “nice,” is functioning as an adjective in this expression.

11. “One hell of trouble.” The fixed English phrase that this Nigerian expression derives from is “hell of a” (also informally rendered as “helluva” in creative mimicry of how the phrase is pronounced in informal spoken English). The indefinite article “a” always appears after the preposition “of” in the expression. So if a native speaker of the English language were to describe someone as troublesome using that expression, she would say “he is one hell of a lot of trouble,” not “he is one hell of trouble.”

12. “Complimentary card.” This is the default expression in Nigerian English for what speakers of other varieties of English call “business card.” As I noted elsewhere, this phrase has to be the most senseless usage error we have normalized, one that will leave even the most perceptive non-Nigerian English speaker irredeemably clueless.

The word “complimentary” simply means "free," that is, costing nothing (example: "the author gave me a complimentary copy of his new book"). So a "complimentary card" simply means a "free card." There is nothing in the phrase to suggest that it is signifying a card on which are printed a person's name, contact details, and business affiliation. I once thought that the phrase emerged probably out of a shortening of "complimentary business card." But this doesn't seem a reasonable assumption to make because the phrase will be superfluous since no one ever sells business cards in the first place. It only makes sense to describe something as complimentary if it is normally sold.


Related Articles:
1. A Comparison of Nigerian, American and British English
2. Why is "Sentiment" Such a Bad Word in Nigeria?
3. Ambassador Aminchi's Impossible Grammatical Logic
4. 10 Most Annoying Nigerian Media English Expressions
5. Sambawa and "Peasant Attitude to Governance"
6. Adverbial and Adjectival Abuse in Nigerian English
7. In Defense of "Flashing" and Other Nigerianisms
8. Weird Words We're Wedded to in Nigerian English
9. American English or British English?
10. Hypercorrection in Nigerian English
11. Nigerianisms, Americanisms, Briticisms and Communication Breakdown
12. Top 10 Irritating Errors in American English
13. Nigerian Editors Killing Macebuh Twice with Bad Grammar
14. On "Metaphors" and "Puns" in Nigerian English
15. Common Errors of Pluralization in Nigerian English
16. Q & A About Common Grammatical Problems
17. Semantic Change and the Politics of English Pronunciation
Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Journalism & Citizen Media
Department of Communication
Kennesaw State University
1000 Chastain Road, MD 2207 
Kennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
Cell:  (+1) 404-573-9697
Blog: www.farooqkperogi.blogspot.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/farooqkperogi

"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will

kenneth harrow

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Jul 17, 2011, 1:46:12 PM7/17/11
to usaafric...@googlegroups.com
thanks farooq for this wonderful fun.
one small observation: on no.4, you can't have your cake and eat it too. the "too" is necessary, at least to my ear.
i find the changes you indicate really amazing. i could understand one person changing an idiom, but how that change got spread to a large community of speakers is something i can't fathom. your newspaper influence is very interesting. but that accounts for only some of the things you indicated.
the main point i get is how language always, necessarily, inevitably changes. and i think the question is also, what controls that change? as well as, what accounts for the change.
thanks again
ken


On 7/17/11 6:05 PM, Farooq A. Kperogi wrote:

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Most Popular Mangled Expressions in Nigerian English

By Farooq A. Kperogi

Let me start by pointing out that mangled expressions (as some people derisively call expressions that are distorted from their �original� idiomatic forms) abide in every variety of the English language. They aren�t exclusive to Nigerian English.

In native varieties of the English language, some mangled expressions have become so popular and so widely used that they have acquired sufficient social prestige to constitute new standards. Examples are �first off� (which is the mangled form of �first of all�), �most everyone� (which is the distorted form of �almost everyone�), �out the window� (where the preposition �of� is dispensed with), etc.

It�s not only the lexical properties of expressions that are often the victims of mangling; popular sayings and aphorisms are also routinely distorted by native speakers. For instance, the popular expression �blood, sweat and tears� is actually a distortion of Winston Churchill's famous wartime speech to the British nation. His exact words are: �blood, toil, tears, and sweat.� The expression �a little knowledge is a dangerous thing� is a distortion of �a little learning is a dangerous thing.�

Similarly, the expression �there is method in my madness� is a misquotation of a passage from Shakespeare's�Hamlet�where Polonius observes: �Though this be madness, yet there is method in�t.� Likewise, the expression �Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink� is a misquotation of British Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge's line in�Ancient Mariner. In it he writes: �Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.�

But we have all got used to these misquotations�or are not even conscious of them as distortions in the first place�because they are committed by the most educated people in the English-speaking world, and have been passed down to us. So we in Nigeria are only adding to a list that is already too long, except that we do not enjoy the same privilege as native speakers of the English in having our own mutilations conferred respectability over time.�

Our deviations are forever condemned to being socially stigmatized as aberrant because we lack the cultural and social capital of native speakers of the language. My object in pointing out the following popular mangled expressions in Nigerian English is not to ridicule them but to simply call attention to them.

1.��Be rest assured.��The fixed English idiom that this Nigerian English expression apes is �rest assured.� It means to be certain. But it is rare in Nigerian English for the expression to be rendered without the pointless and intrusive �be.� The following sentence is an example of how this phrase regularly occurs in popular Nigerian English: �You should BE rest assured that I will not disappoint you.� The �be� in the phrase is superfluous. Native speakers of the English language don�t include it.

I can�t locate the source of this distortion, except to point out that what grammarians call the habitual, uninflected �be� (that is, where the verb �to be� doesn�t change form under any circumstance) occurs a lot in Nigerian Pidgin English (such as in the expression �I be don see am today,� i.e., �I have seen him today�), in African-American Vernacular English (such as in the expression �she be mean to me,� i.e., �she is mean to me�) and in many English-based pidgins and creoles. I am tempted to argue that the addition of �be� before the idiom �rest assured� in Nigerian English is attributable to the influence of Nigerian Pidgin English. Or, perhaps, it is inspired by a false analogy from expressions like "be careful," "be nice," etc.

2. �I appreciate.��When I lived in Nigeria, this expression was not part of the repertoire of popular speech. Its widespread use in contemporary Nigerian English must be the result of the relentless cross-border linguistic flows that the Internet has enabled. The phrase is clearly a poor mimicry of �I appreciate it,� the alternative expression for �thank you� in America, Canada, Britain, and other native-speaker linguistic climes. Without the addition of �it,� �this,� or �that,� the phrase can only mean that the speaker or writer habitually shows appreciation but for nothing in particular; it does not convey the sense that he or she is thankful or grateful for a specific thing. The first time someone said �I appreciate� to me in Nigeria, I couldn�t resist asking �you appreciate what?� As you can probably tell, that expression drives me crazy!

3. �To be at the safer side.��The Standard English idiom that this expression distorts is �to be on the safe side.� �It means to be cautious or safe�or to err on the side of safety or caution. �This seems to me like a sloppy distortion because it violates two basic grammatical rules. First, �on� is the preposition that almost always co-occurs with the noun �side� when it signifies location (e.g. "he is on my side"). Second, the word �safer� is a comparative adjective and comparative adjectives are used only when two things are being compared. Plus, comparative adjectives always co-occur with the conjunction �than,� except in situations where the comparison is apparent.

4. �He is in soup.��The standard rendering of this idiom is �in the soup.� Without the definite article �the,� the expression would mean something other than its conventional idiomatic meaning, that is, in trouble or experiencing difficulty. �He is in soup� could mean that someone has literally fallen into a pot of soup. One of the characteristics of idioms is that their grammatical properties are often fixed and unchangeable. This quality is called grammatical fixity, as I�ve pointed out many times here.

�Nigerian newspapers are clearly to blame for the mangling of this idiom. One of the rules of (daily) newspaper headline writing is that articles (i.e., the words �the,� �a,� and �an�) should always be dispensed with. In line with this rule, copyeditors in Nigerian newspapers cast headlines about people being �in soup,� which is perfectly legitimate. The problem is that the general populace has now adopted and internalized this �headlinese� as if it were conventional, everyday English.

5. �You cannot eat your cake and have it.��Native speakers of the English language usually render this expression as �you cannot HAVE your cake and EAT it.� The sense the expression conveys is that once you�ve eaten your cake, you can�t have it again. I am the first to admit that this sounds rather illogical. I can have my cake and then eat it afterwards. But language, especially the English language, is not often governed by logic. The history of this idiomatic proverb particularly proves this point.

When the expression first appeared in the English language in 1564 in John Heywood�s collection of English proverbs titled �A dialogue Conteinyng the Nomber in Effect of All the Prouerbes in the Englishe Tongue,� it was rendered as �wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?� The modern form of the expression, where the �having� of the cake precedes the �eating� of the cake, started only in 1812, according to linguistic historians. So, in a way, Nigerians are more faithful to the original rendering of the expression than modern native English speakers. I call this the mangling of a mangled expression!

However, Nigerians also tend to substitute �cannot� in the expression with �can never.� I hold Evi Edna Ogoli�s 1980s hit song �You Can Never Eat Your Cake and Have It� responsible for this.

6. �More grease to your elbow.��The correct form of this peculiarly British English expression is �more power to your elbow.� It is used to praise people and wish them continued success in what they do. The expression came into British English by way of Irish English. Although it has lost currency in contemporary British English, it is still actively used in Australian, Indian, and Pakistani English. The usual form of the expression in American (and increasingly British) English is �more power to you!�

It is still a mystery to me why Nigerians have chosen to delete the word �power� from the expression and replace it with �grease.� No other variety of the English language (except, perhaps Ghanaian English which shares so many similarities with Nigerian English) lubricates the expression with �grease.� I once�speculated that the mangling arose out of a false attraction to the expression �elbow grease,��which means �hard work.� But, upon deeper reflection, I am dubious of the plausibility of my own speculation particularly because the expression �elbow grease� is completely absent in Nigerians� everyday English. That leaves me to think that it�s probably derived from the profusion of oil metaphors in our everyday speech as a consequence of our status as an oil-producing country. But why is the idiom not rendered as �more oil to your elbow� since oil is a more usual word than grease? Well, I don�t know.

7. �In affirmative.��The definite article �the� is an integral part of the lexical properties of the expression that signifies a �yes� reply. So it should read �in THE affirmative.� In Nigerian English, especially in Nigerian media English, the article is almost always omitted.

8. �Benefit of doubt.��The proper rendering of this expression in native varieties of the English language is �THE benefit of THE doubt.� Notice that there is the article �the� before �benefit� and another before �doubt.� Of course, the omission of the articles is not sufficient to confuse native speakers of English, but it does indicate insufficient proficiency in the language.

9. �Bite more than you can chew.��The appropriate idiomatic form of this expression is �bite OFF more than you can chew.� It means taking a challenge that is far greater than one�s capabilities. However, I will admit that the omission of the �off� in the idiom is not peculiarly Nigerian. Many non-native speakers and writers also omit it.

10. �It doesn�t worth it.��This is a distinctly Nigerian mangling of the expression �it�s not worth it.� The error arises, I suspect, from misrecognizing the word �worth� as a verb when, in fact, it is an adjective in the sentence. If you won�t say �she doesn�t nice� because �nice� is an adjective, not a verb, you also can�t say �it doesn�t worth it� because �worth,� like �nice,� is functioning as an adjective in this expression.

11. �One hell of trouble.��The fixed English phrase that this Nigerian expression derives from is �hell of a� (also informally rendered as �helluva� in creative mimicry of how the phrase is pronounced in informal spoken English). The indefinite article �a� always appears after the preposition �of� in the expression. So if a native speaker of the English language were to describe someone as troublesome using that expression, she would say �he is one hell of a lot of trouble,� not �he is one hell of trouble.�

12. �Complimentary card.��This is the default expression in Nigerian English for what speakers of other varieties of English call �business card.� As I noted elsewhere, this phrase has to be the most senseless usage error we have normalized, one that will leave even the most perceptive non-Nigerian English speaker irredeemably clueless.

The word �complimentary� simply means "free," that is, costing nothing (example: "the author gave me a complimentary copy of his new book"). So a "complimentary card" simply means a "free card." There is nothing in the phrase to suggest that it is signifying a card on which are printed a person's name, contact details, and business affiliation. I once thought that the phrase emerged probably out of a shortening of "complimentary business card." But this doesn't seem a reasonable assumption to make because the phrase will be superfluous since no one ever sells business cards in the first place. It only makes sense to describe something as complimentary if it is normally sold.


Related Articles:
1.�A Comparison of Nigerian, American and British English
2.�Why is "Sentiment" Such a Bad Word in Nigeria?
3.�Ambassador Aminchi's Impossible Grammatical Logic
4.�10 Most Annoying Nigerian Media English Expressions
5.�Sambawa and "Peasant Attitude to Governance"
6.�Adverbial and Adjectival Abuse in Nigerian English
7.�In Defense of "Flashing" and Other Nigerianisms
8.�Weird Words We're Wedded to in Nigerian English
9.�American English or British English?
10.�Hypercorrection in Nigerian English
11.�Nigerianisms, Americanisms, Briticisms and Communication Breakdown
12.�Top 10 Irritating Errors in American English
13.�Nigerian Editors Killing Macebuh Twice with Bad Grammar
14.�On "Metaphors" and "Puns" in Nigerian English
15.�Common Errors of Pluralization in Nigerian English
16.�Q & A About Common Grammatical Problems
17.�Semantic Change and the Politics of English Pronunciation
Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Journalism & Citizen Media
Department of Communication
Kennesaw State University
1000 Chastain Road, MD 2207�

"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will

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kenneth w. harrow 
professor of english
michigan state university
department of english
east lansing, mi 48824-1036
ph. 517 803 8839
har...@msu.edu

Meshack Owino

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Jul 17, 2011, 5:21:16 PM7/17/11
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Bwana Farooq,
 
Interesting. Many of the examples you gave are also found in other African countries. One common English expression in Kenya that always drives me crazy is: "he resulted to" instead of "he resorted to." 
 
What do you think of: "he painted him to a corner?" This expression drives me crazy, too. It is quite common in Kenyan English.
 
Medshack Owino.
-------------------------


--- On Sun, 7/17/11, Farooq A. Kperogi <farooq...@gmail.com> wrote:

Kwasi Gyan-Apenteng

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Jul 17, 2011, 5:27:40 PM7/17/11
to usaafric...@googlegroups.com

The term "complimentary card" has been defined below. It is the name of the particular card and not an adjective noun combination. It means the same as "business card". If you google "complimentary card" you will find several definitions on the same lines.
 
Definition: A small card identifying a person in connection with his or her business, given to a client, potential customer, etc. ...


 
Kwasi
 
Kwasi Gyan-Apenteng,
Journalist & Communications Consultant
Accra

President,
Ghana Association of Writers
PAWA House, Accra




 
From: farooq...@gmail.com
Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2011 12:05:22 -0400
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Most Popular Mangled Expressions in Nigerian English
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Kwasi Gyan-Apenteng

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Jul 17, 2011, 5:43:35 PM7/17/11
to usaafric...@googlegroups.com
To get the logic of the expression to "have your cake and eat it", you need to understand the word here as meaning "to keep".
So you cannot keep your cake and eat it. Once you eat it you can't keep it. Makes sense, innit?


 
Kwasi
 
Kwasi Gyan-Apenteng,
Journalist & Communications Consultant
Accra

President,
Ghana Association of Writers
PAWA House, Accra




 
From: farooq...@gmail.com
Date: Sun, 17 Jul 2011 12:05:22 -0400
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Most Popular Mangled Expressions in Nigerian English
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Prof. Alfred Zack-Williams

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Jul 17, 2011, 8:04:58 PM7/17/11
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Farooq,

 

Quite an interesting posting, but the one I always enjoy, not mangled in terms of idiom, but in meaning is ‘Trouble shooter’: one who causes trouble (NGE); one who finds and resolves problems (EE).

Z

 

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of kenneth harrow
Sent: 17 July 2011 18:46
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Most Popular Mangled Expressions in Nigerian English

 

thanks farooq for this wonderful fun.
one small observation: on no.4, you can't have your cake and eat it too. the "too" is necessary, at least to my ear.
i find the changes you indicate really amazing. i could understand one person changing an idiom, but how that change got spread to a large community of speakers is something i can't fathom. your newspaper influence is very interesting. but that accounts for only some of the things you indicated.
the main point i get is how language always, necessarily, inevitably changes. and i think the question is also, what controls that change? as well as, what accounts for the change.
thanks again
ken

On 7/17/11 6:05 PM, Farooq A. Kperogi wrote:

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Most Popular Mangled Expressions in Nigerian English

By Farooq A. Kperogi

 

Let me start by pointing out that mangled expressions (as some people derisively call expressions that are distorted from their “original” idiomatic forms) abide in every variety of the English language. They aren’t exclusive to Nigerian English.

 

In native varieties of the English language, some mangled expressions have become so popular and so widely used that they have acquired sufficient social prestige to constitute new standards. Examples are “first off” (which is the mangled form of “first of all”), “most everyone” (which is the distorted form of “almost everyone”), “out the window” (where the preposition “of” is dispensed with), etc.

 

It’s not only the lexical properties of expressions that are often the victims of mangling; popular sayings and aphorisms are also routinely distorted by native speakers. For instance, the popular expression “blood, sweat and tears” is actually a distortion of Winston Churchill's famous wartime speech to the British nation. His exact words are: “blood, toil, tears, and sweat.” The expression “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” is a distortion of “a little learning is a dangerous thing.”

 

Similarly, the expression “there is method in my madness” is a misquotation of a passage from Shakespeare's Hamlet where Polonius observes: “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.” Likewise, the expression “Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink” is a misquotation of British Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge's line in Ancient Mariner. In it he writes: “Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.”

 

But we have all got used to these misquotations—or are not even conscious of them as distortions in the first place—because they are committed by the most educated people in the English-speaking world, and have been passed down to us. So we in Nigeria are only adding to a list that is already too long, except that we do not enjoy the same privilege as native speakers of the English in having our own mutilations conferred respectability over time. 

 

Our deviations are forever condemned to being socially stigmatized as aberrant because we lack the cultural and social capital of native speakers of the language. My object in pointing out the following popular mangled expressions in Nigerian English is not to ridicule them but to simply call attention to them.

 

1. “Be rest assured.” The fixed English idiom that this Nigerian English expression apes is “rest assured.” It means to be certain. But it is rare in Nigerian English for the expression to be rendered without the pointless and intrusive “be.” The following sentence is an example of how this phrase regularly occurs in popular Nigerian English: “You should BE rest assured that I will not disappoint you.” The “be” in the phrase is superfluous. Native speakers of the English language don’t include it.

 

I can’t locate the source of this distortion, except to point out that what grammarians call the habitual, uninflected “be” (that is, where the verb “to be” doesn’t change form under any circumstance) occurs a lot in Nigerian Pidgin English (such as in the expression “I be don see am today,” i.e., “I have seen him today”), in African-American Vernacular English (such as in the expression “she be mean to me,” i.e., “she is mean to me”) and in many English-based pidgins and creoles. I am tempted to argue that the addition of “be” before the idiom “rest assured” in Nigerian English is attributable to the influence of Nigerian Pidgin English. Or, perhaps, it is inspired by a false analogy from expressions like "be careful," "be nice," etc.

 

2. “I appreciate.” When I lived in Nigeria, this expression was not part of the repertoire of popular speech. Its widespread use in contemporary Nigerian English must be the result of the relentless cross-border linguistic flows that the Internet has enabled. The phrase is clearly a poor mimicry of “I appreciate it,” the alternative expression for “thank you” in America, Canada, Britain, and other native-speaker linguistic climes. Without the addition of “it,” “this,” or “that,” the phrase can only mean that the speaker or writer habitually shows appreciation but for nothing in particular; it does not convey the sense that he or she is thankful or grateful for a specific thing. The first time someone said “I appreciate” to me in Nigeria, I couldn’t resist asking “you appreciate what?” As you can probably tell, that expression drives me crazy!

 

3. “To be at the safer side.” The Standard English idiom that this expression distorts is “to be on the safe side.”  It means to be cautious or safe—or to err on the side of safety or caution.  This seems to me like a sloppy distortion because it violates two basic grammatical rules. First, “on” is the preposition that almost always co-occurs with the noun “side” when it signifies location (e.g. "he is on my side"). Second, the word “safer” is a comparative adjective and comparative adjectives are used only when two things are being compared. Plus, comparative adjectives always co-occur with the conjunction “than,” except in situations where the comparison is apparent.

 

4. “He is in soup.” The standard rendering of this idiom is “in the soup.” Without the definite article “the,” the expression would mean something other than its conventional idiomatic meaning, that is, in trouble or experiencing difficulty. “He is in soup” could mean that someone has literally fallen into a pot of soup. One of the characteristics of idioms is that their grammatical properties are often fixed and unchangeable. This quality is called grammatical fixity, as I’ve pointed out many times here.

 

 Nigerian newspapers are clearly to blame for the mangling of this idiom. One of the rules of (daily) newspaper headline writing is that articles (i.e., the words “the,” “a,” and “an”) should always be dispensed with. In line with this rule, copyeditors in Nigerian newspapers cast headlines about people being “in soup,” which is perfectly legitimate. The problem is that the general populace has now adopted and internalized this “headlinese” as if it were conventional, everyday English.

 

5. “You cannot eat your cake and have it.” Native speakers of the English language usually render this expression as “you cannot HAVE your cake and EAT it.” The sense the expression conveys is that once you’ve eaten your cake, you can’t have it again. I am the first to admit that this sounds rather illogical. I can have my cake and then eat it afterwards. But language, especially the English language, is not often governed by logic. The history of this idiomatic proverb particularly proves this point.

 

When the expression first appeared in the English language in 1564 in John Heywood’s collection of English proverbs titled “A dialogue Conteinyng the Nomber in Effect of All the Prouerbes in the Englishe Tongue,” it was rendered as “wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?” The modern form of the expression, where the “having” of the cake precedes the “eating” of the cake, started only in 1812, according to linguistic historians. So, in a way, Nigerians are more faithful to the original rendering of the expression than modern native English speakers. I call this the mangling of a mangled expression!

 

However, Nigerians also tend to substitute “cannot” in the expression with “can never.” I hold Evi Edna Ogoli’s 1980s hit song “You Can Never Eat Your Cake and Have It” responsible for this.

 

6. “More grease to your elbow.” The correct form of this peculiarly British English expression is “more power to your elbow.” It is used to praise people and wish them continued success in what they do. The expression came into British English by way of Irish English. Although it has lost currency in contemporary British English, it is still actively used in Australian, Indian, and Pakistani English. The usual form of the expression in American (and increasingly British) English is “more power to you!”

 

It is still a mystery to me why Nigerians have chosen to delete the word “power” from the expression and replace it with “grease.” No other variety of the English language (except, perhaps Ghanaian English which shares so many similarities with Nigerian English) lubricates the expression with “grease.” I once speculated that the mangling arose out of a false attraction to the expression “elbow grease,” which means “hard work.” But, upon deeper reflection, I am dubious of the plausibility of my own speculation particularly because the expression “elbow grease” is completely absent in Nigerians’ everyday English. That leaves me to think that it’s probably derived from the profusion of oil metaphors in our everyday speech as a consequence of our status as an oil-producing country. But why is the idiom not rendered as “more oil to your elbow” since oil is a more usual word than grease? Well, I don’t know.

 

7. “In affirmative.” The definite article “the” is an integral part of the lexical properties of the expression that signifies a “yes” reply. So it should read “in THE affirmative.” In Nigerian English, especially in Nigerian media English, the article is almost always omitted.

 

8. “Benefit of doubt.” The proper rendering of this expression in native varieties of the English language is “THE benefit of THE doubt.” Notice that there is the article “the” before “benefit” and another before “doubt.” Of course, the omission of the articles is not sufficient to confuse native speakers of English, but it does indicate insufficient proficiency in the language.

 

9. “Bite more than you can chew.” The appropriate idiomatic form of this expression is “bite OFF more than you can chew.” It means taking a challenge that is far greater than one’s capabilities. However, I will admit that the omission of the “off” in the idiom is not peculiarly Nigerian. Many non-native speakers and writers also omit it.

 

10. “It doesn’t worth it.” This is a distinctly Nigerian mangling of the expression “it’s not worth it.” The error arises, I suspect, from misrecognizing the word “worth” as a verb when, in fact, it is an adjective in the sentence. If you won’t say “she doesn’t nice” because “nice” is an adjective, not a verb, you also can’t say “it doesn’t worth it” because “worth,” like “nice,” is functioning as an adjective in this expression.

 

11. “One hell of trouble.” The fixed English phrase that this Nigerian expression derives from is “hell of a” (also informally rendered as “helluva” in creative mimicry of how the phrase is pronounced in informal spoken English). The indefinite article “a” always appears after the preposition “of” in the expression. So if a native speaker of the English language were to describe someone as troublesome using that expression, she would say “he is one hell of a lot of trouble,” not “he is one hell of trouble.”

 

12. “Complimentary card.” This is the default expression in Nigerian English for what speakers of other varieties of English call “business card.” As I noted elsewhere, this phrase has to be the most senseless usage error we have normalized, one that will leave even the most perceptive non-Nigerian English speaker irredeemably clueless.

 

The word “complimentary” simply means "free," that is, costing nothing (example: "the author gave me a complimentary copy of his new book"). So a "complimentary card" simply means a "free card." There is nothing in the phrase to suggest that it is signifying a card on which are printed a person's name, contact details, and business affiliation. I once thought that the phrase emerged probably out of a shortening of "complimentary business card." But this doesn't seem a reasonable assumption to make because the phrase will be superfluous since no one ever sells business cards in the first place. It only makes sense to describe something as complimentary if it is normally sold.

 

 

Related Articles:

Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.

Assistant Professor of Journalism & Citizen Media
Department of Communication
Kennesaw State University
1000 Chastain Road, MD 2207 


"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will

Ayo Obe

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Jul 17, 2011, 3:13:41 PM7/17/11
to usaafric...@googlegroups.com, usaafric...@googlegroups.com
PS, in 'be rest assured' I think that the confusion arises from the fact that most people here treat 'rest assured' as the one word adjective, which as a result requires a verb - hence 'be rest assured'.

Ayo
I invite you to follow me on Twitter @naijama

On 17 Jul 2011, at 18:46, kenneth harrow <har...@msu.edu> wrote:

thanks farooq for this wonderful fun.
one small observation: on no.4, you can't have your cake and eat it too. the "too" is necessary, at least to my ear.
i find the changes you indicate really amazing. i could understand one person changing an idiom, but how that change got spread to a large community of speakers is something i can't fathom. your newspaper influence is very interesting. but that accounts for only some of the things you indicated.
the main point i get is how language always, necessarily, inevitably changes. and i think the question is also, what controls that change? as well as, what accounts for the change.
thanks again
ken

On 7/17/11 6:05 PM, Farooq A. Kperogi wrote:

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Most Popular Mangled Expressions in Nigerian English

By Farooq A. Kperogi

Let me start by pointing out that mangled expressions (as some people derisively call expressions that are distorted from their “original” idiomatic forms) abide in every variety of the English language. They aren’t exclusive to Nigerian English.

In native varieties of the English language, some mangled expressions have become so popular and so widely used that they have acquired sufficient social prestige to constitute new standards. Examples are “first off” (which is the mangled form of “first of all”), “most everyone” (which is the distorted form of “almost everyone”), “out the window” (where the preposition “of” is dispensed with), etc.

It’s not only the lexical properties of expressions that are often the victims of mangling; popular sayings and aphorisms are also routinely distorted by native speakers. For instance, the popular expression “blood, sweat and tears” is actually a distortion of Winston Churchill's famous wartime speech to the British nation. His exact words are: “blood, toil, tears, and sweat.” The expression “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” is a distortion of “a little learning is a dangerous thing.”

Similarly, the expression “there is method in my madness” is a misquotation of a passage from Shakespeare's Hamlet where Polonius observes: “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.” Likewise, the expression “Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink” is a misquotation of British Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge's line in Ancient Mariner. In it he writes: “Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.”

But we have all got used to these misquotations—or are not even conscious of them as distortions in the first place—because they are committed by the most educated people in the English-speaking world, and have been passed down to us. So we in Nigeria are only adding to a list that is already too long, except that we do not enjoy the same privilege as native speakers of the English in having our own mutilations conferred respectability over time. 

Our deviations are forever condemned to being socially stigmatized as aberrant because we lack the cultural and social capital of native speakers of the language. My object in pointing out the following popular mangled expressions in Nigerian English is not to ridicule them but to simply call attention to them.

1. “Be rest assured.” The fixed English idiom that this Nigerian English expression apes is “rest assured.” It means to be certain. But it is rare in Nigerian English for the expression to be rendered without the pointless and intrusive “be.” The following sentence is an example of how this phrase regularly occurs in popular Nigerian English: “You should BE rest assured that I will not disappoint you.” The “be” in the phrase is superfluous. Native speakers of the English language don’t include it.

I can’t locate the source of this distortion, except to point out that what grammarians call the habitual, uninflected “be” (that is, where the verb “to be” doesn’t change form under any circumstance) occurs a lot in Nigerian Pidgin English (such as in the expression “I be don see am today,” i.e., “I have seen him today”), in African-American Vernacular English (such as in the expression “she be mean to me,” i.e., “she is mean to me”) and in many English-based pidgins and creoles. I am tempted to argue that the addition of “be” before the idiom “rest assured” in Nigerian English is attributable to the influence of Nigerian Pidgin English. Or, perhaps, it is inspired by a false analogy from expressions like "be careful," "be nice," etc.

2. “I appreciate.” When I lived in Nigeria, this expression was not part of the repertoire of popular speech. Its widespread use in contemporary Nigerian English must be the result of the relentless cross-border linguistic flows that the Internet has enabled. The phrase is clearly a poor mimicry of “I appreciate it,” the alternative expression for “thank you” in America, Canada, Britain, and other native-speaker linguistic climes. Without the addition of “it,” “this,” or “that,” the phrase can only mean that the speaker or writer habitually shows appreciation but for nothing in particular; it does not convey the sense that he or she is thankful or grateful for a specific thing. The first time someone said “I appreciate” to me in Nigeria, I couldn’t resist asking “you appreciate what?” As you can probably tell, that expression drives me crazy!

3. “To be at the safer side.” The Standard English idiom that this expression distorts is “to be on the safe side.”  It means to be cautious or safe—or to err on the side of safety or caution.  This seems to me like a sloppy distortion because it violates two basic grammatical rules. First, “on” is the preposition that almost always co-occurs with the noun “side” when it signifies location (e.g. "he is on my side"). Second, the word “safer” is a comparative adjective and comparative adjectives are used only when two things are being compared. Plus, comparative adjectives always co-occur with the conjunction “than,” except in situations where the comparison is apparent.

4. “He is in soup.” The standard rendering of this idiom is “in the soup.” Without the definite article “the,” the expression would mean something other than its conventional idiomatic meaning, that is, in trouble or experiencing difficulty. “He is in soup” could mean that someone has literally fallen into a pot of soup. One of the characteristics of idioms is that their grammatical properties are often fixed and unchangeable. This quality is called grammatical fixity, as I’ve pointed out many times here.

 Nigerian newspapers are clearly to blame for the mangling of this idiom. One of the rules of (daily) newspaper headline writing is that articles (i.e., the words “the,” “a,” and “an”) should always be dispensed with. In line with this rule, copyeditors in Nigerian newspapers cast headlines about people being “in soup,” which is perfectly legitimate. The problem is that the general populace has now adopted and internalized this “headlinese” as if it were conventional, everyday English.

5. “You cannot eat your cake and have it.” Native speakers of the English language usually render this expression as “you cannot HAVE your cake and EAT it.” The sense the expression conveys is that once you’ve eaten your cake, you can’t have it again. I am the first to admit that this sounds rather illogical. I can have my cake and then eat it afterwards. But language, especially the English language, is not often governed by logic. The history of this idiomatic proverb particularly proves this point.

When the expression first appeared in the English language in 1564 in John Heywood’s collection of English proverbs titled “A dialogue Conteinyng the Nomber in Effect of All the Prouerbes in the Englishe Tongue,” it was rendered as “wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?” The modern form of the expression, where the “having” of the cake precedes the “eating” of the cake, started only in 1812, according to linguistic historians. So, in a way, Nigerians are more faithful to the original rendering of the expression than modern native English speakers. I call this the mangling of a mangled expression!

However, Nigerians also tend to substitute “cannot” in the expression with “can never.” I hold Evi Edna Ogoli’s 1980s hit song “You Can Never Eat Your Cake and Have It” responsible for this.

6. “More grease to your elbow.” The correct form of this peculiarly British English expression is “more power to your elbow.” It is used to praise people and wish them continued success in what they do. The expression came into British English by way of Irish English. Although it has lost currency in contemporary British English, it is still actively used in Australian, Indian, and Pakistani English. The usual form of the expression in American (and increasingly British) English is “more power to you!”

It is still a mystery to me why Nigerians have chosen to delete the word “power” from the expression and replace it with “grease.” No other variety of the Engl

Ayo Obe

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Jul 17, 2011, 3:09:55 PM7/17/11
to usaafric...@googlegroups.com, usaafric...@googlegroups.com
We pedants do sometimes say "Eat your cake and have it whole".  But that "Be rest assured" drives me up the wall!

Farooq, I am waiting for your examination of the reversal of 'would' for 'will' and 'will' for 'would'.  That is, I would like to hear from you on this matter.  Or rather (as even educated people are  now saying) 'I will like to hear from you on this matter'.

Ayo
I invite you to follow me on Twitter @naijama

On 17 Jul 2011, at 18:46, kenneth harrow <har...@msu.edu> wrote:

thanks farooq for this wonderful fun.
one small observation: on no.4, you can't have your cake and eat it too. the "too" is necessary, at least to my ear.
i find the changes you indicate really amazing. i could understand one person changing an idiom, but how that change got spread to a large community of speakers is something i can't fathom. your newspaper influence is very interesting. but that accounts for only some of the things you indicated.
the main point i get is how language always, necessarily, inevitably changes. and i think the question is also, what controls that change? as well as, what accounts for the change.
thanks again
ken

On 7/17/11 6:05 PM, Farooq A. Kperogi wrote:

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Most Popular Mangled Expressions in Nigerian English

By Farooq A. Kperogi

Let me start by pointing out that mangled expressions (as some people derisively call expressions that are distorted from their “original” idiomatic forms) abide in every variety of the English language. They aren’t exclusive to Nigerian English.

In native varieties of the English language, some mangled expressions have become so popular and so widely used that they have acquired sufficient social prestige to constitute new standards. Examples are “first off” (which is the mangled form of “first of all”), “most everyone” (which is the distorted form of “almost everyone”), “out the window” (where the preposition “of” is dispensed with), etc.

It’s not only the lexical properties of expressions that are often the victims of mangling; popular sayings and aphorisms are also routinely distorted by native speakers. For instance, the popular expression “blood, sweat and tears” is actually a distortion of Winston Churchill's famous wartime speech to the British nation. His exact words are: “blood, toil, tears, and sweat.” The expression “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing” is a distortion of “a little learning is a dangerous thing.”

Similarly, the expression “there is method in my madness” is a misquotation of a passage from Shakespeare's Hamlet where Polonius observes: “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.” Likewise, the expression “Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink” is a misquotation of British Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge's line in Ancient Mariner. In it he writes: “Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink.”

But we have all got used to these misquotations—or are not even conscious of them as distortions in the first place—because they are committed by the most educated people in the English-speaking world, and have been passed down to us. So we in Nigeria are only adding to a list that is already too long, except that we do not enjoy the same privilege as native speakers of the English in having our own mutilations conferred respectability over time. 

Our deviations are forever condemned to being socially stigmatized as aberrant because we lack the cultural and social capital of native speakers of the language. My object in pointing out the following popular mangled expressions in Nigerian English is not to ridicule them but to simply call attention to them.

1. “Be rest assured.” The fixed English idiom that this Nigerian English expression apes is “rest assured.” It means to be certain. But it is rare in Nigerian English for the expression to be rendered without the pointless and intrusive “be.” The following sentence is an example of how this phrase regularly occurs in popular Nigerian English: “You should BE rest assured that I will not disappoint you.” The “be” in the phrase is superfluous. Native speakers of the English language don’t include it.

I can’t locate the source of this distortion, except to point out that what grammarians call the habitual, uninflected “be” (that is, where the verb “to be” doesn’t change form under any circumstance) occurs a lot in Nigerian Pidgin English (such as in the expression “I be don see am today,” i.e., “I have seen him today”), in African-American Vernacular English (such as in the expression “she be mean to me,” i.e., “she is mean to me”) and in many English-based pidgins and creoles. I am tempted to argue that the addition of “be” before the idiom “rest assured” in Nigerian English is attributable to the influence of Nigerian Pidgin English. Or, perhaps, it is inspired by a false analogy from expressions like "be careful," "be nice," etc.

2. “I appreciate.” When I lived in Nigeria, this expression was not part of the repertoire of popular speech. Its widespread use in contemporary Nigerian English must be the result of the relentless cross-border linguistic flows that the Internet has enabled. The phrase is clearly a poor mimicry of “I appreciate it,” the alternative expression for “thank you” in America, Canada, Britain, and other native-speaker linguistic climes. Without the addition of “it,” “this,” or “that,” the phrase can only mean that the speaker or writer habitually shows appreciation but for nothing in particular; it does not convey the sense that he or she is thankful or grateful for a specific thing. The first time someone said “I appreciate” to me in Nigeria, I couldn’t resist asking “you appreciate what?” As you can probably tell, that expression drives me crazy!

3. “To be at the safer side.” The Standard English idiom that this expression distorts is “to be on the safe side.”  It means to be cautious or safe—or to err on the side of safety or caution.  This seems to me like a sloppy distortion because it violates two basic grammatical rules. First, “on” is the preposition that almost always co-occurs with the noun “side” when it signifies location (e.g. "he is on my side"). Second, the word “safer” is a comparative adjective and comparative adjectives are used only when two things are being compared. Plus, comparative adjectives always co-occur with the conjunction “than,” except in situations where the comparison is apparent.

4. “He is in soup.” The standard rendering of this idiom is “in the soup.” Without the definite article “the,” the expression would mean something other than its conventional idiomatic meaning, that is, in trouble or experiencing difficulty. “He is in soup” could mean that someone has literally fallen into a pot of soup. One of the characteristics of idioms is that their grammatical properties are often fixed and unchangeable. This quality is called grammatical fixity, as I’ve pointed out many times here.

 Nigerian newspapers are clearly to blame for the mangling of this idiom. One of the rules of (daily) newspaper headline writing is that articles (i.e., the words “the,” “a,” and “an”) should always be dispensed with. In line with this rule, copyeditors in Nigerian newspapers cast headlines about people being “in soup,” which is perfectly legitimate. The problem is that the general populace has now adopted and internalized this “headlinese” as if it were conventional, everyday English.

5. “You cannot eat your cake and have it.” Native speakers of the English language usually render this expression as “you cannot HAVE your cake and EAT it.” The sense the expression conveys is that once you’ve eaten your cake, you can’t have it again. I am the first to admit that this sounds rather illogical. I can have my cake and then eat it afterwards. But language, especially the English language, is not often governed by logic. The history of this idiomatic proverb particularly proves this point.

When the expression first appeared in the English language in 1564 in John Heywood’s collection of English proverbs titled “A dialogue Conteinyng the Nomber in Effect of All the Prouerbes in the Englishe Tongue,” it was rendered as “wolde you bothe eate your cake, and have your cake?” The modern form of the expression, where the “having” of the cake precedes the “eating” of the cake, started only in 1812, according to linguistic historians. So, in a way, Nigerians are more faithful to the original rendering of the expression than modern native English speakers. I call this the mangling of a mangled expression!

However, Nigerians also tend to substitute “cannot” in the expression with “can never.” I hold Evi Edna Ogoli’s 1980s hit song “You Can Never Eat Your Cake and Have It” responsible for this.

6. “More grease to your elbow.” The correct form of this peculiarly British English expression is “more power to your elbow.” It is used to praise people and wish them continued success in what they do. The expression came into British English by way of Irish English. Although it has lost currency in contemporary British English, it is still actively used in Australian, Indian, and Pakistani English. The usual form of the expression in American (and increasingly British) English is “more power to you!”

It is still a mystery to me why Nigerians have chosen to delete the word “power” from the expression and replace it with “grease.” No other variety of the Engl

Moses Ebe Ochonu

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Jul 18, 2011, 8:51:54 PM7/18/11
to usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Oh my goodness, Ayo, you have touched on the most annoying (for me) Nigerian grammatical peeve. The substitution of "would" for "will"--which I have found to be more prevalent than "will" for "would"--is so ubiquitous in Nigerian written and spoken English that, in exasperation, I have given up on seething privately about it. That has got to be the most common mangling in Nigerian English. With the caliber of Nigerians who are repeat, tendentious offenders in this category, I have come to the conclusion that this is a national linguistic idiosyncrasy, the origin of which remains a mystery. Why the heck would you say 'I would talk to you later"--indicating a probability and/or conditionality--when we have an appointment to meet and talk or will retire as a matter of certain routine to the same abode or venue at the end of our separation? Jeez!

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Pius Adesanmi

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Jul 18, 2011, 11:45:42 PM7/18/11
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"Why the heck would you say 'I would talk to you later"--indicating a probability and/or conditionality--when we have an appointment to meet and talk or will retire as a matter of certain routine to the same abode or venue at the end of our separation?"

Because I could!:D big grin

Pius
 


From: Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Monday, 18 July 2011, 20:51
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Most Popular Mangled Expressions in Nigerian English

Farooq A. Kperogi

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Jul 19, 2011, 12:39:03 AM7/19/11
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Ayo,

I wrote about this sometime last year. See it below:

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Q and A about Common Grammatical Problems

By Farooq Kperogi

When I started a new Q & A segment for this column last week, I didn’t imagine that it would catch on this fast. Since the segment appeared last week, I have received a torrent of queries from readers.

Given that I’ve received more questions than I can accommodate in the kind of tiny little segment I had last week, I’ve decided to devote this week’s entire column to readers’ questions. All questions that have not been answered this week will receive attention in subsequent weeks. Keep the questions coming and I will be glad to respond to them.

Question:
It's always a pleasure reading your articles on grammar. I have a question for you. You can send your response to me directly and post it on your Q & A page, but I wish to remain anonymous. I'm a little confused over the use of “would.”  It has never been confusing for me to use it as a past tense of “will,” but in a number of cases I'm unsure about its usage.

Answer:
Thanks for your compliments. “Would” basically has four uses/meanings in grammar. You’ve already pointed out its most obvious grammatical function, that is, that it serves as the past tense of the modal auxiliary verb “will.”

But it has three other common uses. First, it can be used to express polite request even if the request is in the present, as in “would you (be kind enough to) give me that cup?” A less polite version of this request would be “give me that cup” or “will you give me that cup?” Note that “could,” like “would,” can also be used to express polite request, as in: “could I have the phone number please?”  (This is analogous, in some ways, to how some African languages—like Yoruba, for example—use the second-person plural pronoun, which does not exist in modern English, to signal respect to an elder).

Notice, however, that Nigerians tend to misuse “could” in such sentences as “could you remember…” where “can you remember” would be the correct form.

Second, “would” is also used to express a conditional future, that is, an action that has not taken place but that might take place. E.g., “I would slap him if he talked to me like that!” Here, he hasn't talked to you “like that,” and you haven't slapped him. The sentence only implies that should he talk to you like that, you would slap him. In grammar, we say “would” is functioning here as a conditional modal verb. Note that all the verbs in the sentence (i.e., “would” and “talked”) are in the past tense; it would be wrong if the verb “to talk” were in the present tense in the sentence. That is, it would be wrong to say, “I would slap him if he TALKS to me like that” since the “talking” hasn't taken place.

Third, “would” is used to indicate an action that happened habitually in the past. Example: “when I was a kid, my mom would take me to the movie theater every weekend.” Here, the action has obviously been completed in the past. It would be bad form to use “would” if the action continues, that is, if your mom still takes you to the movie theater every weekend.

Question:
When I watch American soaps, they seem to care less about tenses. Or may be it’s something beyond me, I don’t know. For instance, a typical dialogue goes like this: “Daughter: 'dad, do you snore ‘cause I do. Dad: 'yeah you GET that from me'.” Should not the “get” be GOT? Could you clarify this for me please?

Answer:
Well, it's not true that Americans don't care about tenses. They do. The example of the use of present tense in the dialogue you cited is called the “historical present” in grammar. It's perfectly legitimate even in British English. It's intended to make a past event more vivid, or to signal continuity between the past and the present. In conversational English, it's particularly used with such “verbs of communication” as “get” (as in, “OK, I get it: you’re a genius!”), “forget” (as in, “I forget his name”), “tell” (as in, “your dad tells me you want to talk to me”). Other verbs of communication that are expressed in the historical present in speech are “write” and “say.”

 I agree with you, though, that Americans tend to use the historical present more often than the British. Of course, the historical present is rarely used in Nigerian English, except by our creative writers who deploy it in their fictional narratives. In the hypothetical dialogue you cited, however, it would be perfectly legitimate to replace “get” with “got.” In fact, in formal contexts, “got” would be especially appropriate.

Question:
What’s the difference between “customer” and “client”? Or are the words interchangeable?

Answer:
 At one level, “customer and “client” can mean the same thing. But careful writers and people who show sensitivity to grammatical propriety often observe the finer semantic nuances that exist between the words, as I will show shortly.

The American Heritage Dictionary, one of the English-speaking world’s most respected dictionaries, says both “customer” and “client” can denote “one that buys goods or services.” But the Dictionary nonetheless goes further and identifies five other definitions for “client” that it does not associate with “customer.” For instance, it says a client is: “the party for which professional services are rendered, as by an attorney.” (Attorney is the preferred word for “lawyer” in American English).

 It also says a client is “one that depends on the protection of another.” So, to put it crudely, a client is a “customer” with whom you have a protective, continuing, often service-oriented, business association.

 You may never know your customers because they are usually transitory, informal, and professionally unaffiliated with you, but your clients have a more or less permanent professional relationship with you and, therefore, their trust and comfort must be constantly won and re-won. They are consciously courted and sustained.

 In general, customers purchase goods and services and disperse—and may never come back. Clients, on the other hand, do more than that; they often seek professional advice and knowledge from businesses. So lawyers, medical doctors, designers, etc tend to have clients rather than customers. Newspaper vendors, market women, etc, on the hand, tend to have customers rather than clients.

Interestingly, in Nigerian English a “customer” simultaneously refers to one that buys and one that sells. That’s why both buyers and sellers call each other “customers” in Nigerian markets!
Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Journalism & Citizen Media
Department of Communication
Kennesaw State University
1000 Chastain Road, MD 2207 

"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will
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Farooq A. Kperogi

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Jul 19, 2011, 2:08:33 AM7/19/11
to usaafric...@googlegroups.com, mas...@yahoo.com
Chief Meshack,

I have been thinking of doing an exploratory comparative analysis of African Englishes. But the thought of the sheer labyrinthine complexity such an undertaking would entail frightens me to impotence. You are now giving me the inspiration to summon the pluck to do it. Well, perhaps somebody has already done this.

But these are my preliminary thoughts: It seems to me that we can isolate and map African Englishes and show their similarities, differences, and continuities. The varieties of English spoken in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania seem to share enough similarities to warrant being grouped as "East African English." Correct me if I am wrong. The English spoken in Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and the Gambia has traditionally been labeled "West African English" in the scholarly literature.

 For historical reasons, Nigerian English and Ghanaian English are particularly sufficiently proximate in lexis and structure to deserve being called close linguistic cousins. Many, perhaps most, of Ghana's high school English teachers in the 1960s were Nigerians, and most of Nigeria's high school English teachers in the 1970s and 1980s were Ghanaians. (All my English teachers in the first two years of my high school education were Ghanaians). So it's easy to see why the varieties of English spoken in the two countries are robustly similar. Liberian English, because of its American heritage, is a West African outlier, although it has had a lot of Nigerian influence lately. 

Now, Nigerian home movies appear to be spreading Nigerian English across West Africa, perhaps across all of Anglophone Africa. 

I know very little about Southern African English, i.e., the English spoken in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Namibia, etc. But I expect them to share many similarities.

I find your examples of Kenyan English usage interesting. Some of my British grammarian friends tell me that the "result to/resort to" error is also present in British English. I have also encountered it a number of times in Nigerian newspapers. So it's not uniquely Kenyan. But it is completely absent in American English, as far as I know, because Americans roll their r's and so don't have a reason to confuse "resort" with "result."

To "paint oneself or somebody into a corner," that is, to put oneself or somebody in a difficult situation, is an American English idiom. So the expression "he painted him into a corner" is legitimate. Kenyan English only missed "in" in their version of the idiom.

Farooq

Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Journalism & Citizen Media
Department of Communication
Kennesaw State University
1000 Chastain Road, MD 2207 
Kennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
Cell:  (+1) 404-573-9697
Blog: www.farooqkperogi.blogspot.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/farooqkperogi

"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will



Ibukunolu A Babajide

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Jul 20, 2011, 11:55:46 AM7/20/11
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Farooq,
 
Please add to your list "Religion is the opium of the masses", I discovered about a week ago that Karl Marx never rendered it that way.
 
Cheers.
 
IBK

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