Fellow Nairalanders, I've observed over times that there are some English words we use wrongly either in meaning or pronunciation. Some of them have been passed down to us and we assume they are right whereas theyre not. I want us to share and learn, so if you know of any such wrong word you've heard ppl misuse/mispronounce, pls bring it up and let's know its correct version. My own examples are:

lanky: which dictionary meaning is 'gracefully thin' but maybe because of the way it sounds, many people use it to describe a heavily built and tall person which is the exact opposite in meaning.

crannies: (from nooks and crannies) I've heard some people pronounce it as 'cranies' but it should be pronounce as written.

conveniency: instead of convenience (verb form). Because there are words like 'efficiency,complacency etc some think there shd be 'conveniency' but it is not so, it's just 'onvenience'.

sword: Some pronounce it as it is written but the 'w' should be silent. Rather it should be something like 'sord'.


Those are my submissions for today, see you again for more as I come across them and pls do add yours.

Thousand of words exist my person.
Let start with Mother----------it should be /mAder/
murder--------we do pronounce mother for murder
uncle-----------/Ankle/
tithe---------/tide/
bus-------------/bAs/
come------ cAme/
Motor is referred to as engine that could be in a ship car,sewing machine,generator etc.So we can have motor car or car vehicle or bus and not who will drive ur motor
worse--------/wErse/
Doctor ----------/dActe/
faith is different from fate
education----------/ejucatn/
This may be difficult to learn or get but if u are into language study u will understand it better .I just rushed into responding,I will send in the transcription of those words and programme my key board to bring out those transcribed words

@i4serious, thanx for your response, I actually didn't intend to go into deep linguisitic stuff. If we want to consider that many of us will be 'guilty'. I actually mean the very commonly mis-used/mis-pronounced words like pronouncing 'ship' for 'cheap', 'efriday' for 'everyday' and stuff likes that.I myself am an average English speaker, am not into language study linguist. I bow for ur knowledge o

A lot of it is just accent and that's ok - there a zillions of different accents in the world. Even in England, you'll find a wide range of different accents. Sometimes we can even meet someone from elsewhere in England and find it quite hard to understand what they are saying.

Some words are used differently in Nigerian English to other versions though, or at least to British English. I wouldn't say this is wrong, just different.

Take - to mean eat/consume. We only use it in this sense with medicine (I have no idea why) and not for anything else. I've seen this cause a lot of confusion. If you tell a British person to 'take your food' they'll stand up and wonder where they are supposed to carry it to!

Resume - I've heard a lot of Nigerians use this differently too, where British people would just use 'start'.

Send-forth party - this is a leaving party elsewhere.

Pronounciation - English does have very odd spelling and pronounciation so I'm not surprised some things go wrong for non-native speakers.  For example
Th - this is often pronounced just as T in names. So the River Thames is the River Tems, Thomas is Tomas, Theresa is Teresa, and so on.
It's not easy though. I got caught out when I visited a place in the UK called Prinknash. I thought it would be said Prink-nash. Oh no. Prinnidge.

Sometimes it's just different customs. It took me a long time to get used to being called Madam by Nigerians, without feeling insulted! I still don't like it, but I put up with it because I know it's just someone being very polite according to your culture. And the first time someone met me at their door and bowed and said 'please come in Madam' I almost left, because if a British person did that it would be rude (or at least teasing). I can remember playing a game as a girl and calling my mum 'Madam' as part of the game - I got a good whack round the ear for being cheeky.

cashoqqy,
This is an educative trend.U are highly appreciated.
Many Africans especially we Niger we think when we twist our tongue as if we are gulping down hot pap when speaking English language that's when we could be referred to as "been to "we think we can be referred to as"o nso phonetics" or when u want everybody to have a 2nd look at who is speaking we will start d twisting stuff.This action usually pisses me off .But because of the environment that we are, everybody will approve of that person to be a learned person.
My younger sister -in law's husband fortunately we were mates when we were in primary school and part of secondary school,whenever we meet at the family house that's when this guy will start all the twisting of tongue when talking to his child and all the kids around .Everybody will have to pay uneccesarry homage to him .But within me I knew that was not real.I can only doff my cap for u when ur grammar is o.k and 2 when words are rightly pronounced not when u have d mind of saying where is your 'mother' and u are twisting tongue to ask for the person's ' murderer'
Trust we Niger no we like show up.

Nice and educative thread._{It reminds me of the phonetics learnt in school}
kudos to my Phonetics teacher then.

This is for some Nigerian actresses and actors esp Ramsey Noah and his peeps with their combined English and American accent. I hope they read these:

Talk is d/f from tok (not an English word).
Cant is not and will never be cunt (two very d/f meaning).
Walk is walk and not wok (also not an English word).
Water is not woter or wota (not English words)

What then can we say of Ghanaian teachers who teach our children to pronounce 'water' as 'woteh' 'ruler' as 'ruler' as 'ruleh' etc. (By the way, I've always wanted to know if Ghanaian pronounciations are as
good as some people claim they are) Linguists in the house, over to you.

What of Ibo teachers who teach their pupils to pronounce 'l, m, n' as 'elu, emu, enu'? How about Hausas that pronounce 'power' as 'fawa' and 'failure' as 'pailure'?

My fellow southwesterners are not left out in showcasing their native tongue in their spoken English (my friend would say the person's English is smelling of his dialect ).A typical Osun state indigene would pronounce 'education' as 'edukeson' and 'Isuzu' as 'Ishushu' .

I know someone who pronounce 'silver' as 'sliver' and 'mosque' as 'moks'. It is true English is not our mother tongue as we usually declare but I think we should take our time to always cross our 'ts' and dot our 'i's'.

See you soon.

BOLORUNFEM,
Why people are so particular or appreciative of Ghanians English is in their pronunciation.If am not mistaken Ghana was colonised by the British? Am I right? Likewise Nigeria too been colonised by the British.The influence of who ever colonises a country has a great influence on the language of that particular country in question.But Ghanians still hold unto the real pronunciation unlike we Nigerians.Except those that read English language or are linguists, mass communicators e.t.c.But is quiet unfortunate that despite these people mentioned above we are still poor in our pronunciation. I mean those exposed to language itself I am not even talking about wrong pronunciation of words from a Doctor or a banker or an Enginner but from linguist themselves news casters.
They are not to be blamed our lecturers are to be blamed and our lecturers still have govt to blame cos in any language class or department their should be a language laboratory in all our universities but behold how many of our universities have Language laboratory.Even the so called federal schools?Language laboratory- where there will be thorough analysis of all vowel sounds and consonant sounds. In the laboratory you will be able to know practically that alphabets that are vowels and consonants are diferrent in pronunciation with vowel sounds and consonant sounds.
There is what is known as standard English and that is the language of the BBC.That is still related to the British.Know this,y do we still have in all universities of the world
English department where u can study English Language? And what is the type of English to be used as medium of teaching,what are u going to learn ?It is still the STANDARD ENGLISH I MENTIONED ABOVE (BRITISH ENGLISH)though there are variations of English in Britain itself, but all is summed up in the STANDARD ENGLISH is not spoken by all Brithons but few who are these few ? d elites, the educated ones, the linguist, the learned ones are u surprised? if is not a fact is almost a fact .And that is the pattern the so called Ghananians follow in their pronunciation that is why to certain extent they thrive well in spoken aspects when they are in the western world that is y they are easily understood.We Nigerians, we are good in the grammatical aspect but some how poor in pronunciation.e.g 95% of Nigerians will say your school 'BOSS' IS AROUND WHEN WE WANTED TO SAY 'B^S' IT SHOULD BE TRANSCRIBED AS /BAS/ THE /A/ IN IT SHOULD HAVE D SIGN OF 'V' TURNED UPSIDE DOWN. Another example is tomb /tu:m/
When I get the phonetics symbol of those sounds on my key board it will be easy to understand.Is the explanation not meaningful? or what please respond pending the time I will be able to represent those words phonetically/with TRANSCRIPTION.PLS RESPOND
Thanks.

how about written english? no one can over estimate the error of . .

all right . . . . . written as alright.

toshmann:

how about written english? no one can over estimate the error of . .

all right . . . . . written as alright.

Or lately written as . . . . . Alrite

Whiteman for face blackman fo yansh.

I'm improving in learning the grammatical aspect of IGBO LANGUAGE, will soon graduate.

Quote from: toshmann on February 13, 2008, 12:42 AM
how about written english? no one can over estimate the error of . .

all right . . . . . written as alright.


Or lately written as . . . . . Alrite 

 
@romeo:
Indeed, sir, this, I must admit, a bit of a peeve of mine!

The more recent vernacular has further compressed the articulation of this into the egregiously disphonious "aiight!"

luv = love
rove= love

I thought it would be of consequence to bring this post to the top of the list for the following reason:

The English-speaking world has lost one of its most eloquent, articulate members. William F. Buckley, Jr. has died.

Although probably best known for having essentially founded the modern conservative movement in American politics, Buckley was a speaker, writer, editor and lover of words like no other. He founded his own magazine, National Review, in which the level of writing was considered to be largely unsurpassed--indeed, among the finest in the English language. He authored many books, both fiction and non-fiction, covering many topics. And, his vocabulary was simply a marvel to behold! His verbal precision is something from which we could all learn.

Sorry to go "off topic" but this thread pertains to misused words. Buckley didn't know how to misuse English words. If you wish to better your word usage, familiarize yourself with his writings.

PEPPERISH is a nonword, uneducated Nigerian english

RENTAGE is another nonexistent word commonly used around here.

@knotty:
Indeed, it seems that people have taken to appending the suffix "-age" onto all manner of words in vain attempts to make them nouns (in many cases, the words are already nouns).

My only guess is that they're engaging in a pitifully futile attempt to sound erudite in an ersatz technoid way.

Band=as in to ban something

I was watching a video on the group Zule zoo, i think thats their name, on why one of their songs got banned and they kept saying "the banding, "

I have also heard a number of people make the same mistake

English teachers plenty for here o

GISTING
this is yet another commonly misused word around here.
GIST is not a verb in all the dictionaries of English, well of course, Nollywood is not one them.
get the gist of the matter and do not GISTING about in ignorance.

PESTING
same goes with PESTING as with GISTING. the word PEST is a noun, period. if you must verbalise it, then use PESTER.

By the way, I don't know how many of you are aware of it, but in the US, today is "Happy Grammar Day!"

Nice thread !
I have learnt some new things
Cheers

I've heard people make statements like "Don't take it personal". It should be "Don't take it personally".

Another commonly misused one especially in Naija is "join the bandwagon". You don't join the bandwagon, u either climb or jump on the bandwagon.

Will try to think of some more.

lami4life:

I've heard people make statements like "Don't take it personal". It should be "Don't take it personally".

Another commonly misused one especially in Naija is "join the bandwagon". You don't join the bandwagon, u either climb or jump on the bandwagon.

Will try to think of some more.

really?

@Romeo
Really.

I've noticed dat we atimes make the mistake of juxtaposing local terms with English words. A good example is the english word 'lanky'(thin) and the yoruba word 'lanki' ( as in lanki lanki)- plump. These two words are virtually antonyms but some people tend to use ' Lanky' (the english word) in the context of a plump person.

LANKY MEANS THIN.

u are so right lami4life. I am slim and tall and people often don't use the word "lanky " on me cus they think lanki lanki is someone that is huge like goliath ! LOL   some little but costly blunder. _{don't take it personal} 

I know there are songs titled "don't take it personal"

one by Monica and another by Usher ft. Lue Diamond and many more

and there is a book called "don't take it personally" by Elayne Savage

So i need some good grammatical reasons why they are wrong

lets start with dem; bitch = binch, silver=sliver,slippers=silpers, knickers=knicker(widout s), champagne=campaign. all commonly used badd!!!

henry007:

lets start with them; bitch = binch, silver=sliver,slippers=silpers, knickers=knicker(widout s), champagne=campaign. all commonly used badd!!!

'moks' for mosque, 'wardrope' for wardrobe, 'lylon' for 'nylon' . These are common among Yoruba speakers. Has anyone heard a typical Igbo person call 'lining' (as in the one used in sewing cloth)? Hey, when I was learning how to sew, there were two different clients of my Oga that were pronouncing 'lining' as 'LANDING' . Incredible, you would say, but let everyone reading this try and find out. To me, its very funny. It may not be common to all Igbos but a good number of them are culprits.

lami4life:

I've heard people make statements like "Don't take it personal". It should be "Don't take it personally".

Another commonly misused one especially in Naija is "join the bandwagon". You don't join the bandwagon, u either climb or jump on the bandwagon.

Will try to think of some more.

Really? 'personal' is an adjective, just like 'good', 'easy' 'cold' etc. If one can say 'make it good' 'take it easy (and not necessarily 'take it easily')', and 'drink it cold', I don't want to believe ', take it personal' is wrong. Peeps, what do you think? Please let's learn.

Furthermore, I believe '‘taking it personal’ would mean ‘applying a direct and personal meaning to it’ For example, my reference to some Igbo people’s pronunciation of ‘lining’ as ‘landing’ above may trigger off a negative reaction by an Igbo Nairalander who may see it as offensive. It can then be said that such a person is ‘taking it personal’ whereas I've made a general observation.

On the other hand, ‘taking it personally’ would mean ‘getting hold of, or laying one’s hand on an object by oneself, instead of another person doing it for one. That is, being physically or personally involved in that action.

Also, about the 'bandwagon' issue, I think (not sure though) it is an idiomatic expression. Does anyone else know about this?