Nigerian English that I like to call bad
grammar about grammar. By this I mean our
tendency to misuse and encipher the
terminologies of grammarians with our
unique meanings. Find below a sample of
such errors.
“Grammar.” Many Nigerian English speakers
use the term “grammar” to mean pretentious
unfamiliar words, what George Orwell once
elegantly called “exaggerated Latinisms.” For
instance, if a speaker or writer were to use
words like “tintinnabulation,” “propinquity”
“concatenation,” etc., Nigerian English
speakers would describe such a speaker as
“blowing grammar.” But that’s a nonstandard
meaning of “grammar.” Grammar merely
means the branch of linguistics that is
concerned with syntax (arrangement of
words in sentences), morphology (rules for
forming words) and, sometimes, semantics
(study of meaning). In other words, grammar
basically means the science of correct usage
of a language. Many of the words and
sentences that Nigerians call “grammar” are
often, ironically, riddled with bad grammar.
The technical name for what Nigerians call
“grammar” is “inkhorn term.” They are also
called “sesquipedalia.” (Americans call
inkhorn terms “vocabulary words,” which
strikes me as tautological since “vocabulary”
and “word” are almost interchangeable).
Most inkhorn terms have Latin and Greek
origins and made their way into the English
language in large numbers from about the
mid-16th century. That came about because
English began to be used in place of Latin as
the language of scholarship and science. So
a whole host of Latin words were Anglicized.
I once read about how Samuel Johnson, one
of the first English literary critics to
incorporate inkhorn terms in his literary
criticism, provoked a confused mixture of
admiration and condemnation when he
abandoned Anglo-Saxon terminology in
preference for Latinate expressions in his
critique of a work of art. Instead of writing
that a literary work lacked enough wit to
make its effect last, he wrote that the work
had “insufficient vitality to preserve it from
putrefaction.”
Most “original” Anglo-Saxon words are
monosyllabic and consist of no more than
four letters. Examples: come, go, see, you,
that. Most contemporary polysyllabic English
words are foreign borrowings.
Inkhorn terms have always been
controversial since their infusion into the
lexis of the English language, as the Johnson
example above shows. George Orwell fiercely
railed against it. In his celebrated “Politics
and the English Language” essay, he wrote:
“Bad writers, and especially scientific,
political, and sociological writers, are nearly
always haunted by the notion that Latin or
Greek words are grander than Saxon ones,
and unnecessary words like expedite,
ameliorate, predict, extraneous, deracinated,
clandestine, subaqueous, and hundreds of
others constantly gain ground from their
Anglo-Saxon numbers.”
In sum, to call inkhorn terms “grammar” is
bad grammar.
“Grammarian.” This is the Nigerian English
word for someone who uses many inkhorn
terms. Of course, this is not the conventional,
dictionary meaning of grammarian. A
grammarian is someone who studies the
science of correct usage of language. Most
grammarians, in fact, avoid inkhorn terms.
Native English speakers have no word that I
know of for someone who uses many
inkhorn terms.
“Lexicographer.” When Nigerians don’t use
“grammarian” to refer to someone who uses
big words, they use “lexicographer” or
“lexicologist.” A Nigerian online publication
referred to bombastic, ostentatious wordy
former House of Representatives member
Patrick Obahiagbon as a “lexicographer.” But
the dictionary definition of “lexicographer” or
“lexicologist” is “A compiler or writer of a
dictionary; a student of the lexical
component of language.” As far as I am
aware, Obahiagbon has never written a
dictionary, nor is he a student of the lexical
component of the English language.
“Jargon.” I grew up in Nigeria thinking that
“jargon” meant grammatically incorrect,
nonsensical English. This understanding was
based on how the word was widely used in
my immediate surroundings. While
memorizing the dictionary in my teens, I
remember being concerned that the meaning
of “jargon” that I encountered in the
dictionary completely displaced what I
initially thought it meant. I thought my
dictionary was probably not advanced
enough to capture the whole range of
significations of the word.
The word only means the specialized
technical vocabulary of a group or a
discipline, usually not accessible to the
general populace, as in, the jargon of the
legal/medical/journalistic profession. Based
on this meaning, jargon can also be
extended to mean incomprehensible talk or
gibberish. But it is not unusual to hear many
educated Nigerians tell people, in a state of
anger, that they are speaking or talking
jargons even when the accused are speaking
plain, comprehensible English! I once
speculated that Nigerian use “jargon” the
way they do because the word almost sounds
like “jagajaga”— a Nigerian Pidgin English
word that encapsulates everything that we
deem objectionable.
“Colloquial English.” Many Nigerian English
speakers use this phrase to mean bad, old-
fashioned English. In truth, however,
colloquial English simply means
conversational English, that is, informal
spoken English as opposed to formal written
English. Everybody—from Britain to America
to Nigeria—speaks colloquial English when
they speak in casual, everyday settings.
Perhaps, Nigerians have such a negative view
of the word “colloquial” because it almost
sounds like “colonial,” a word that now has a
pejorative connotation in Nigeria and
elsewhere.
“Queen’s English.” Nigerians often say people
speak—and, rather oddly, write— the
Queen’s English when we are impressed with
their command of the English language.
However, the Queen’s English, also called
Received Pronunciation (or just RP), now
simply means English as SPOKEN (not
written) by educated people in southeastern
England. It is also the accent taught in British
public schools and, until recently, it was the
only pronunciation used in British
broadcasting. There is no way a Nigerian who
did not grow up in southern England—or
who didn’t attend a British public school—
can speak the Queen’s English. To use the
expression as a synonym for “Standard
English” is obsolete even in British English
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