₦airaland Forum

One of my professors once lamented that my generation, in his words, glorify ignorance. His pain came from his seeing fliers on which "music" was spelled "muzik" and "night" was spelled "nite". He insisted that such must not be tolerated even if it was trendy- that it is a sign that my generation would not value the virtues of thoroughness, studiousness, order and precision. And he went on and on.
I did not argue with him though I wanted to. I really felt he was blowing the whole thing out of proportion.
But today I have observed- I don't know if you have as well- that many Nigerian graduates and undergrads do not know how to speak, let alone write, correct English. Just listen to them ask questions at conferences. Read their posts and comments on Facebook. It is not uncommon to hear or read a supposed educated youth mix up tenses, abuse subject and predicate, misspell words, or (the big one) confuse homonyms. In fact, finding one who can speak and write well these days brings the same delight as stumbling upon corned beef in your mother's salad.
Could there be a connection between this ugly development and our acceptance of slang in our circles?
Then again, you'd hear some supposed Pan-Africanists argue along this line: Does it matter if we speak English correctly? After all it's not our first language? English Language mastery is not the metric for literacy. We are Africans and need to break out of this slave mentality! Who English epp?
Yet I notice that these same people usually have the most impressive command our the so-called colonial language.
So I ask, what exactly is our problem? Should we blame the schools that churn out these graduates, or do we blame our glorification of ignorance?

I know a British and an Australian who has the worst spellings ever...but who cares right?

unclezuma:


I know a British and an Australian who has the worst spellings ever...but who cares right?

That British or Australian may not be educated like our own folks here... you only met an uneducated British/Australian

justhenry:
That British or Australian may not be educated like our own folks here... you only met an uneducated British/Australian

He's educated up to a Masters bro