By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D. Twitter: @farooqkperogi Many people called my attention to a tweet by Abike Dabiri-Erewa, President Muh...
By
Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
Twitter: @farooqkperogi
Many people called my attention to a tweet by Abike Dabiri-Erewa,
President Muhammadu Buhari’s Senior Special Assistant on Foreign Affairs and
Diaspora, who wrote that her travel warning to Nigerians to not travel to the
US was just “an advice.”
That is, of course, grammatically incorrect. “Advice” is a non-count
noun, which does not admit of the conventional singular and plural forms of
regular nouns. In other words, there is neither “advices” nor “an advice.” The
singular form of “advice” is expressed as “a piece of advice” (or just “advice”)
and the plural form is expressed as “pieces of advice.”
Dabiri-Erewa, who is incidentally a graduate of English from the
Obafemi Awolowo University, is not alone in the practice of unconventionally
singularizing and pluralizing uncountable nouns.
In an April 14, 2010 article titled “Common Errors of Pluralization in Nigerian English,” I pointed out that, “One notable feature of
Nigerian English is the predilection for adding plural forms to nouns that
don’t normally admit of them in Standard English. This is certainly a
consequence of the inability of many Nigerian speakers and writers of the
English language to keep up with the quirky, illogical irregularities that are
so annoyingly typical of the conventions of English grammar.”
How English Plurals Are
Formed
It’s common knowledge that the plural form of most nouns in
English is created by adding the letter “s” to the end of nouns. But sometimes
it requires adding “es” to nouns that end in “ch,” “x,” “s,” or s-like sounds,
such as “inches,” “axes,” “lashes,” etc. There are also, of course, irregular
forms like “children” as the plural of “child,” “oxen as the plural of “ox,”
etc.
Then you have uncountable—or, if you will, “non-count”— nouns,
which cannot be modified or combined with the indefinite articles “a” or “an.”
This is precisely where Nigerians fall foul of standard usage norms.
Irregular noun plurals
Most educated Nigerians generally know that nouns like equipment,
furniture, information (except in the expression “criminal informations,” or
“an information,” which is used in the US and Canada to mean formal accusation
of a crime, akin to indictments), advice, news, luggage, baggage, faithful
(i.e., loyal and steadfast following, as in, “millions of Christian and Muslim
faithful”), offspring, personnel, etc. remain unchanged even when they are
expressed in a plural sense. But few know of many other nouns that have this
characteristic.
Unconventional noun
singularizations in Nigerian English
Although most educated Nigerians would never say “newses” or
“advices” or “informations” to express the plural forms of these nouns, they
tend to burden the words with singular forms that are not grammatical. For
instance, they would say something like “that’s a good news” or “it’s just an
advice” or “it’s an information for you.”
Well, since these nouns don’t have a plural form, they also can’t
have a singular variant, that is, they cannot be combined with the indefinite
articles “a” or “an.” So the correct way to render the sentences above would be
“that’s a good piece of news” (or
simply “that’s good news”), “it’s just a
piece of advice” (or “it’s just advice), and “it’s information for you.”
Other nouns that are habitually pluralized wrongly in Nigerian
English are:
“Legislations.” Nigerians inflect the word “legislation”
for grammatical number by adding “s” to it. The sense of the word that denotes
“law” (such as was used in this Punch headline: “Nigerians need
legislations that will ease their problems –Cleric”) does not take an “s” even
if it’s used in the plural sense. In Standard English, the word’s plural form
is usually expressed with the phrase “pieces of,” or such other “measure word”
(as grammarians call such expressions).
So the headline should correctly read: “Nigerians need
pieces of legislation…” or simply “Nigerians need legislation….” However, the
sense of the word that means “the act of making laws” may admit of an “s,”
although it’s rare to encounter the world “legislations” in educated speech in
Britain or America.
“Rubbles.” Another
noun that Nigerians commonly add “s” to in error is “rubble,” that is, the
remains of something that has been destroyed or broken up. This word is never
inflected for plural. It’s customary to indicate its plural form with the
measure word “piles of,” as in, “piles of rubble.” (Grammarians call words that
are invariably singular in form “singulare
tantum”).
“Vermins.” Similarly, the word “vermin,” which means
pests (e.g. cockroaches or rats) — or an irritating or obnoxious person— is
invariably singular and therefore does not require an “s” or the indefinite
article “a.” But in Nigerian English it’s common to encounter sentences like
“they are vermins” or “he is a vermin.”
“Footages/aircrafts.” “Footage” and “aircraft” are also invariably
singular. So it’s nonstandard to either say or write, as many Nigerian do, “a
footage” or “footages,” “an aircraft” or “aircrafts.” Dispense with the
“s” at the end of the nouns and the indefinite articles “a” and “an” at the
beginning.
“Heydays.” There is nothing like “heydays” in
Standard English. It remains “heyday” even if the sense of the word is plural.
“Yesteryears.” Yesteryear
is also invariably singular and does not change form when it expresses a plural
sense. Only Nigerian English speakers and perhaps other non-native English
speakers pluralize “yesteryear.”
“Cutleries.” Cutlery always remains “cutlery” even if
you’re talking of millions of eating utensils.
“An overkill.” In Standard English, “overkill” is
usually uninflected for number. So, where Nigerian English speakers would say
“it’s an overkill,” people who speak standard varieties of English simply say
“it’s overkill.”
“Slangs.” Nigerian English speakers habitually
pluralize slang as “slangs” and singularize it as “a slang.” That’s
unconventional. The Standard English plural forms of “slang” can be just “slang”
(as in, “he speaks a lot of slang”) or “slang words,” or “slang terms,” or
“slang expressions.” The singular form is simply “slang” (as in, “that was
slang”).
“Invectives.” The word’s plural form is expressed by
saying “a stream of invective,” not “invectives.”
“Beehive of activities.” The expression “beehive of activities,”
which is common in Nigerian English, is nonstandard. It is usually rendered as “a
beehive of activity” (also “a hive of activity). Its plural form is “beehives of
activity” (or “hives of activity”). When “activity” means a “situation in which
something is happening or a lot of things are being done,” it is usually
uncountable.
So, it should be “a lot of economic activity,” not “a lot of
economic activities.” It should be “physical activity,” not “physical
activities.”
The only sense of “activity” that is pluralized is the sense that
means “a thing that you do for interest or pleasure, or in order to achieve a
particular aim,” such as “outdoor activities,” “leisure activities,” “criminal
activities,” etc.
“Potentials.” It is usual in Nigerian English, even
educated Nigerian English, to pluralize “potential” as “potentials,”
particularly in the expression “Nigeria has great potentials.” In Standard
English, however, “potential” is often uninflected for number, that is, it
remains “potential” even if its sense is plural.
Why Native Speakers Don’t
Pluralize These Nouns
As I’ve observed and chewed over these admittedly vexatious
English plural forms over the years, I have been struck by the fact that I’ve
never encountered any native speaker of the English language who has flouted
these rules in speech or in writing. Not even my American college students who
can be lax and slipshod with their grammar.
I think this is a consequence of the force of example. When people
grow up not hearing older people say “an advice,” “a good news,”
“legislations,” “vermins,” etc., they unconsciously internalize and make peace
with the illogical irregularities that these exceptions truly are.
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