AllNaijaBlogger:


They just want to feel good that they can speak English

I blame Nigerian secondary schools for not teaching many Nigerian languages seriously. I would have had A1 in Itsekiri and not F9 in Yoruba

joseph1832:
People often mistake or have little understanding of the word 'communication'.

Patrick Obahiagbon will blow grammar from now til thy kingdom come and many will applause him without having understood what he's saying- communication not established.

A market woman will make a grammatical blunder many will rush to correct her- communication established.

We like pointing our flaws to ridicule ourselves. If you want to correct a person's grammatical expression, do so without making a mockery or monkey of the person.

Cheers.

christopher123:


Did you pass WAEC at all?...your tenses are terrible...i must confess grammatically maybe ok but tenses are just terrible


Once again i get your drift..english aint our papas language


So do not feel bad

joseph1832:
Confess away you spoilt child! You should know the pronoun I is always written in capital letter.

See person wey say my tenses dey terrible oh!.

Please do point out my mistakes, don't just come here and make corrections without doing the correcting! Thank you.

AllNaijaBlogger:



Another example of "oversabi" and "smartass" gramarian grammar Nazi.



"tune down" is actually logically inconsistent.


You "tune" to a station but you don't "tune" down the volume. Tune applies to frequency and not volume


It actually makes more sense to "turn" the volume down. One actually has to "turn" the volume knob down to reduce the volume

christopher123:


Monkey



you dont tune down a volume, you tune to a station and Turn or reduce the volume


Did you even pass WAEC



sabi sabinus

Marc9:


Just for the fact ur mum is my lover, I'll ignore ur post!

Mologi:
hon.patrick...
na u b dat..sooryyy...i catch u

English has played it part...
nawah ooo

Britons self no dey complain say we dey spoil their lang..

yes i mad it...haaaa...takes mic..speechless
(rubs my face with my hand)

AllNaijaBlogger:

christopher123:


Just for the fact that i made love to my mother and had party with my sisters...i will ask you to try the same with my mum and my sisters wearing nepa gloves

SaintRobs:
5.“Names withheld.” This expression rankles me to no end. It’s not only unprofessional and irresponsible journalism to habitually conceal the identity of the subjects you are writing about (as in, “a south-south governor in an oil-rich state [names withheld] is involved in a corruption scandal”); it’s also exasperatingly redundant to state that you have withheld the name of someone whose name you have not mentioned anyway! It is obvious to any reader that a name has been withheld if it’s not mentioned. But what is particularly irksome about this practice is that it is used even in reporting stories of crucial public importance.

If reporters and editors are not prepared to name names, even where it is legally and ethically safe to do so, why waste ink and space to opaquely hint at them? But the bad news for editors and reporters who practice this imbecilic and feeble-minded journalism is that, in media law, not directly mentioning the name of a person or an organization is not sufficient safeguard against legal liability. If a person or a company can prove that there is sufficient material basis for “right-thinking” members of the society to infer that they are the object of a libelous newspaper innuendo, the paper is in the soup.

6.“Electioneering campaign:” “Electioneering” and “political campaign” mean the same thing. So “electioneering campaign” is tautologous. It’s either electioneering or campaign.

7.“Our story is true in every material particular:” The phrase “in every material particular” is an archaic legal jargon. It is not used in everyday English in any native variety of the English language.

8.“Yesteryears:” This old-fashioned word, which is sometimes used for literary effects, has no plural in both the British and American varieties of Standard English. It remains “yesteryear” whether it’s in the singular or plural form. Another word that Nigerian newspapers—and by extension Nigerian speakers of the English language—pluralize against conventional practice is “slang.” The plural is often rendered as “slangs” in Nigeria. In Standard English, however, the plural form of slang does not take an “s”; it is often rendered as “slang expressions.”

9.“A free-for-all fight:” This tautologic expression is probably a consequence of the misrecognition of the part of speech of “free-for-all.” It is a noun, not an adjective, and cannot modify another noun. It means a brawl, a noisy fight in a crowd. So it is sufficient to simply write that there was a free-for-all without adding “fight.”

10. “Not unconnected with:” This expression is not grammatically wrong but is hopelessly hackneyed and pretentious. George Orwell once urged us to laugh the not un- formation out of existence by memorizing this sentence:“A not unblack dog was chasing a not unsmall rabbit across a not ungreen field.

Source:http://www.farooqkperogi.com/2009/12/10-most-annoying-nigerian-media-english.html

DjAndroid:


Is The language yours? If you must speak a language, speak like the owner of the language. You may not have the accent but the grammar/technicalities must be revered.

English is not made in Nigeria, so there is nothing like "this is Nigeria for you".

Speak English the way it should be spoken.

tjark1:
Good job...
But my man, if you want to teach or correct, try not to create more problems.... with All this grammar u blowing here, u should be working as Chris Okotie's interpreter or APC spoke person...

be explicit as possible except u wona be noticed/show off...

nice work though...

AllNaijaBlogger:



Another example of "oversabi" and "smartass" gramarian grammar Nazi.



"tune down" is actually logically inconsistent.


You "tune" to a station but you don't "tune" down the volume. Tune applies to frequency and not volume


It actually makes more sense to "turn" the volume down. One actually has to "turn" the volume knob down to reduce the volume

fr3do:
Nonsense! Do you expect us to speak english exactly like the british? This is Nigeria and thats Nigerian english for you.
I expected you to criticize their horrible accents.

fr3do:


Nigeria is a compilation of numerous ethnic nations, we were united to form one country and english is the official language, we have all fallen to it to communicate with one another. pidgin is even there for quicker and more convenient communication.

Communication is what language is all about, Nigerians are getting information explicitly that is what is important, not some guidelines from Britian.
English in Britian has been changing since time immemorial, english in medival times is different from english now.
If english can change in Britian why cant it change in Nigeria?



how does this deviation help your argument or counter mine? Drop your points and stop asking yeye questions.

missdebs:
i so hate the 'name witheld' part, na dis one no make us knw bokoharam sponsor since

joseph1832:
Pay no heed to the ignoramus christopher123. I believe he forgot: "Na overskill nahim kill ajegunle Monkey". Now christopher123 what will you call the statement above, metaphor or idiom?.

ZACHIE:



To be fair to the OP, his topic wasn,t meant for general use.
it is a specialized writing targeted at a segment of English language users, this time, commercial users otherwise known as Journalists.

Do not crucify him please.

SaintRobs:
10 Most Annoying Nigerian Media English Expressions
By Farooq A. Kperogi

Contemporary Nigerian media English, for the most part, derives from a fetid repertoire of aggravatingly stereotyped and error-ridden phraseology. I have isolated 10 recurrent ones that particularly grate on my nerves.

While some of the expressions I have highlighted below are outright grammatically incorrect, others are grammatically correct but either laughably outdated or hopelessly clichéd. Either way, they all need to be dumped like “the verbal refuse” that they are. The numbering of the expressions is entirely arbitrary; it doesn’t indicate a hierarchical ordering of their egregiousness.

1.“Remains deposited at the mortuary.” This is almost the standard expression in Nigerian media English to say that a dead body has been delivered at the mortuary. There are two problems with this expression. First, the word “remains” is too formal for a news story. “Corpse” and “dead body” are the more usual words. And “deposit” is a singularly quaint verb to associate with death, especially in popular usage.

There are three principal senses of the word “deposit” in conversational English. The first and most popular is to put money or other valuables in a bank account. The second sense is to put, fix, force or implant something, as in “deposit a bullet in the table.” And the third sense is to situate something, that is, to put something somewhere firmly, as in “deposit the suitcase on the bench.” It’s unclear how this expression sprang in Nigerian media English, but it makes me sick to my stomach.

2.“Hear him,” or “in his words:” These are not strictly grammatically incorrect expressions; they are just ugly, inappropriate and superfluous verbiages. The convention in journalistic writing globally is to quote a source and acknowledge attribution by writing “(s)he said” at the end of a sentence. Example: “I hope Yar’adua lives long enough to save us from a potentially destructive constitutional crisis,” he said.

Now, when Nigerian newspaper journalists write “hear him,” they are not only being superfluous; they are also being unfaithful to the medium in which they write. We don’t literally “hear” people in print; we read them. And to write “in his words” while at the same time inserting quotation marks to those words is redundant. It is precisely because you’re quoting your source “in his words” that the sentence is in quotation marks. It’s, of course, appropriate to write “in his words” in broadcast scripts since they are meant to be read out.

3.“As at the time of filing this report:” Well, the correct expression, which is actually a fixed prepositional phrase, is “AS OF,” not “as at.” So, that sentence should read: “As of the time of filing this report.” This solecism has sadly percolated deep into the conventions of Nigerian English in general.

4.“Men of the underworld”: This expression has lost currency in other parts of the English-speaking world. But my gripe with it is that it’s a hackneyed, flyblown cliché that evinces the intellectual laziness of Nigerian journalists. Why not simply write “criminals”?


To be continued...

AllNaijaBlogger:



Another example of "oversabi" and "smartass" gramarian grammar Nazi.



"tune down" is actually logically inconsistent.


You "tune" to a station but you don't "tune" down the volume. Tune applies to frequency and not volume


It actually makes more sense to "turn" the volume down. One actually has to "turn" the volume knob down to reduce the volume