By Farooq A. Kperogi With the exponential growth and flowering of mobile telephony in Nigeria, a corpus of uniquely Nigerian telephon...
By Farooq A. Kperogi
With
the exponential growth and flowering of mobile telephony in Nigeria, a corpus
of uniquely Nigerian telephonic phraseology is emerging. What follows is not
intended to be understood as grammatical errors. A word or phrase isn’t a
grammatical error simply because its usage deviates from the norms of
native-speaker varieties. On the contrary, it may indicate linguistic
creativity. But it helps to know the communicative limitations of uniquely
local phrases for international communication.
1.
“Toss” or “toos.” This is Nigerian English’s first
telephonic vocabulary. It is now outdated. It’s short for “temporarily out of
service”— a voice prompt that Nigeria’s notoriously incompetent state-run NITEL
(Nigerian Telecommunications) invented for telephone lines that were suspended
for failure to pay monthly service bills. Although the initials of the
words that make up the phrase are “toos,” Nigerians preferred “toss,” perhaps
because it sounded more English than “toos.” Or maybe it was because a word with
that spelling already exists in the English language. Nigerians later invented
creative phrases around the term, such as “my line is on toss,” “my line has
been tossed,” etc. Interestingly, one of the meanings of “toss” in English is
to throw or cast away, which is somewhat similar in effect to what happens when
a phone subscriber’s line is suspended.
2.
“Flash.” I have written several articles on this word which,
in Nigerian English, means to drop a call intentionally before the intended
recipient picks it up. The closest approximation of this term in native varieties
of English, especially in American English, is “missed call,” that is,
intentionally dropped calls.
In the Third World, intentionally missed calls are
used to communicate several messages. In Nigeria, for instance, it can mean “I
have no minutes in my phone; please call me back,” or “Hi. This is just to let
you know I’m thinking about you,” or “I’m ready. Come pick me up.” It can also
function as a code between people, such as when somebody says, “When I ‘flash’
you, it means he is here.”
In the Philippines, “flashing” is called “miskol.”
It’s formed from “missed call” and functions both as a noun and as a verb (as
in: “That was a miskol”; “I will miskol you”). It won the “word of the year” in
the country in 2007.
In England and Australia it’s called “prank,”
(as in: “I don’t have your phone number; can you prank me?” Or “That wasn’t a
real call; it was a prank”). In the U.S. it’s called “drop
call”
(used both as a verb and as a noun, although it’s a rare urban slang term). In
Rwanda it’s called a “beep,” and it’s also used both as a verb and as a noun. See
my previous articles titled “In Defense of Flashing and other Nigerianisms” and
“Top Hilarious Differences between American and Nigerian English” for other
examples.
3.
“Handset.” This is the Nigerian English word for what speakers
of the dominant varieties of English simply call a phone. In popular usage in
both the US and the UK, a handset doesn’t refer to a mobile phone receiver; it
usually refers to the detachable part of a landline telephone that is held up
to speak into and listen to. Americans also call it “French telephone.” In
British and American English, “handset” can also refer to a handheld controller
for any piece of electronic equipment such as a remote control for TV, a
walkie-talkie, or a video recorder.
 |
| This is what native speakers call a "handset" |
I recall
reading former Nigerian presidential spokesman Segun Adeniyi’s experience in America about
this. He wrote that no one understood him when he said he had misplaced his
“handset.” After a lot of explanation, he said, someone vaguely understood what
he meant and asked, “you mean your phone?” To be sure, technically, a mobile
phone receiver is also a handset; it’s just that native speakers of English hardly call it by that name in informal, conversational contexts.
4.
“Call off.” Many Nigerians use this phrase where
speakers of British and American English would use “hang up.” This arises from
a very literal understanding of the phrase: When you dial people’s numbers, you
call them, and when you cut the call you “call off.” But “call off” is an idiom
and idioms, by definition, are expressions whose meanings cannot be inferred
from the meanings of the individual words that make them up. “Call off” chiefly
means to cancel something altogether or to postpone it indefinitely. Example:
The Academic Staff Union of Universities will call off its strike tomorrow.
“Call of” has no connection with telephony, but Femi Kusa, a former
Editor-in-Chief of the Guardian,
wrote in a recent article that a reporter called him and “called off.”
5.
“Engaged.” This word for what Americans call “busy” isn’t
uniquely Nigerian. It is the preferred British English word to indicate that a
telephone line is unavailable because it is already in use. Thus, “engaged
tone” or “engaged signal” is the sound you get when you dial a number that is “engaged.”
The first time I told an American that I called his number and it was “engaged”
there was a communication breakdown. If I had said it was “busy” or that I got
a “busy tone” he would have understood me immediately.
6.
“Network problems.” This is the phrase Nigerians use when there
is a high incidence of what native English speakers call “dropped calls.” Where
Americans and Britons would say “the signal (strength) is weak,” or “reception
is poor,” or they are “experiencing access failure,” Nigerians say “the network
is poor” or “there are network problems.” Interestingly, “network problems” is now
becoming a catch-all phrase for all kinds of technological failures outside of
telephony. For example, a friend recently told me he didn’t respond to my email
on time because of “network problems” with his Internet! Synonymous expressions for “network problems”
are “service problems” or simply “service,” especially in Nigerian Pidgin
English.
7.
“Interconnectivity.” This is not an everyday word in
native varieties of English, but it is in contemporary Nigerian English. It is
used to denote poor signal exchange between Nigeria’s wireless phone service
providers. Even uneducated Nigerians habitually talk about “interconnectivity
problems” between, for instance, MTN and Glo. That word would make no sense to
most people in the UK and the US for three reasons: First, the idea that two
phone companies can’t exchange signals is beyond their experiential repertoire.
Second, that word is too big, too stilted, and too pretentious for informal,
conversational purposes. Third, the word is never used in connection with
telephony. But I think it speaks to the linguistic creativity of Nigerians that
they have “hijacked” this word and “force-fed” it with extraneous semantic
properties in the service of expressing a phenomenon that is unique to their
telephonic experiences. There is absolutely no reason to discourage its use in
this context.
8.
“Killer numbers.” From about the midpoint of 2011, maybe
earlier, several hoaxes emerged in Nigeria that claimed that answering certain
mysterious phone numbers could result in the instant death or paralysis of the
receiver. The Nigerian press dubbed such numbers “killer numbers.” The phrase is
now integrated into the everyday speech of a broad spectrum of superstitious
Nigerians because the hoaxes have endured to this day. Native speakers of English will find this phrase puzzlingly
incomprehensible.
Related Articles:
1. A Comparison of Nigerian, American and British English
2. Why is "Sentiment" Such a Bad Word in Nigeria?
3. Ambassador Aminchi's Impossible Grammatical Logic
4. 10 Most Annoying Nigerian Media English Expressions
5. Sambawa and "Peasant Attitude to Governance"
6. Adverbial and Adjectival Abuse in Nigerian English
7. In Defense of "Flashing" and Other Nigerianisms
8. Weird Words We're Wedded to in Nigerian English
9. American English or British English?
10. Hypercorrection in Nigerian English
11. Nigerianisms, Americanisms, Briticisms and Communication Breakdown
12. Top 10 Irritating Errors in American English
13. Nigerian Editors Killing Macebuh Twice with Bad Grammar
14. On "Metaphors" and "Puns" in Nigerian English
15. Common Errors of Pluralization in Nigerian English
16. Q & A About Common Grammatical Problems
17. Semantic Change and the Politics of English Pronunciation
2. Why is "Sentiment" Such a Bad Word in Nigeria?
3. Ambassador Aminchi's Impossible Grammatical Logic
4. 10 Most Annoying Nigerian Media English Expressions
5. Sambawa and "Peasant Attitude to Governance"
6. Adverbial and Adjectival Abuse in Nigerian English
7. In Defense of "Flashing" and Other Nigerianisms
8. Weird Words We're Wedded to in Nigerian English
9. American English or British English?
10. Hypercorrection in Nigerian English
11. Nigerianisms, Americanisms, Briticisms and Communication Breakdown
12. Top 10 Irritating Errors in American English
13. Nigerian Editors Killing Macebuh Twice with Bad Grammar
14. On "Metaphors" and "Puns" in Nigerian English
15. Common Errors of Pluralization in Nigerian English
16. Q & A About Common Grammatical Problems
17. Semantic Change and the Politics of English Pronunciation
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