Bastardism of Lingo

Yes, tis me! I’m here again o with another reflective thought.

I have this friend whose name I will choose not to mention. He happens to be very dear to my heart and will continue to remain so. His nickname however, is Lingo. He is one person who is very concerned about his appearance and most importantly the impression he leaves with new acquaintances. He is well read in almost every topic you can imagine, and one very striking thing is that he speaks good English, but this story is not about Lingo, my friend. It is about another lingo, our language, English.

Some might argue with me that English is not Nigeria’s lingua-franca. It is. Our presidents, past and present, speak it. It is the accepted form of communication in our corporate environment and until our market places become international trade centers, my friend, our local dialects still have a long way to go. Now, that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s move on to the real business.

Does it surprise you, the level of literacy among the younger working class of our country. Or rather, let me desist from sounding like a ‘Miss Know It All’. I rephrase, does the spoken English of Nigeria’s graduates surprise you? I for one, I’m always surprised at the rate of bullets being shot daily at unsuspecting victims.

A mail was sent requesting the attention of a particular staff who was not around at that time. A colleague felt the need to register this and replied; ‘kindly liaise with miss lagbaja, as miss tamedo is not on sit’. Please, I hope you noticed that because, if you did not, then you’re one of those I’m talking about. The correct word should have been SEAT and not SIT. This is considering that we will ignore the wrong constructive use of certain words in that sentence.

At this stage, I’m beginning to worry about my readers, at the risk of sounding pompous, I wonder if I’m carrying everyone along. I’ll just assume that most people understand me.

Stepping away from grammar, how about pronunciation and spelling? One guy was sharing with another,

Mr A: do you know the church chorus, ‘omini potent God, omini science God….’

Mr B: Ummm…, oh! yes I do, you’re always singing it! What about it?

Mr A: do u know, people always say, ‘omini potent God, omini science God….’. it should be ‘omni potent God, omni science God, I just decided to check the meaning and noticed the spelling!’

Mr B: (with a cynical look) oh really?! (mock surprise)

This conversation was taken well in by my humble self and I could not help but share it with a friend via text. Gosh! U mean, this man passed through Primary School, Secondary School and University and is just realizing the real spelling of Omni at his ripe age of 34. Praise the lord! Better late than never, anyway. Now, I must confess, I am at a loss of where to categorise this man’s error realization, pronunciation or spelling? You see, even I know not the fate of my knowledge of English language.

Anyway, as a typical Nigerian would say….It is well!