An English lady asked, why do Nigerians say things twice?

She proceeded to give the following examples: do-do, chin-chin, puff-puff. Her husband who was listening joined in and mentioned moin-moin. This got me thinking and I decided to do a research into this phenomenon. Here are my findings:

Do-do – fried plantain

Chin-chin – fried dough chips

Puff-puff – round fried dough

Kuli-kuli – fried peanut ball

Dun-dun – fried yam chips

Wole-wole – sanitary inspectors

Paja-paja – pins and needles

Maja-maja – highway traffic inspectors

Die-die – little by little

Pata-pata – completely

Laba-laba – butterfly

Pari-pari – the end

Seke-seke - chains

Lopo-lopo – very much

Nla-nla – massive

Kia-kia – quickly

Jedi-jedi – pile

Dogba-dogba – equally

Lai-lai – never

Mago-mago - deception

Gbonmo-gbonmo – kidnappers

Tun-tun – new

Tu-tu – cold

Te-te - quick

Ke-ke – bicycle

Re-re – good

Some are English words which we have domesticated and which may have slightly different meanings such as:

Chop-chop - food or eating

Suffer-suffer - sufferhead

Quick-quick - quickly

Fast-fast - quickly

Now-now – hurry up

Yahoo-yahoo - fraudster

Hurry-hurry - quickly

Sharp-sharp – smart alec

Follow-follow – indecisive

Why we repeat words is beyond me. Has this got to do with our fast pace approach to life? Is it to buttress what we say? Is it to exert fear? Or is it just a Yoruba thing?

Now to my English friend, Helen who brought this to my attention in the first place, English people do have theirs too. What about Pa-pa and Paw-paw.

Finally, one of the most popular songs in Nigeria has the following lyrics:

Eh eh eh, eh, my God is good o

My God is good o, my God is good o

Everything na double, double

Na double, double

Whilst I do not want to visit the meaning and depth of the song for now, I cannot but notice an extra double in the chorus. Double explains itself, there isn't a need to say double-double. However, this is Nigeria, double has to be repeated.

*giggles*

Lalasticlala this question never pass Jamb since 2012... Ftp