By Nwigwe nnamdi 08037024609
When you hear that someone, especially a top politician, has dropped a “bombshell” you would automatically want to know what the big news is all about.
The expression connotes an earth shaking event which is actually what an exploded bomb is.
To those who must have experienced the early wars in history, crude bombs, when detonated, left their empty covers, shells or, if you like, lifeless relic or empty cases.
A couple of years ago an angry war veteran, possibly from World War 1, complained in the prestigious “Letter to the editor” column of the Times of London that he couldn’t understand why the newspapers were excited by “bombshell” as an expression of something real when , to him , it was “mere shell , the most harmless item in war situation . A spent force”
Perhaps that was how he understood it .But in modern English usage a bombshell is actually a bomb as can be ascertained from any good dictionary.
So if bombshell means the same thing as bomb, why don’t we simply do with the word “Bomb”?
Another popular expression is C.I.D of the police, an abbreviation of Criminal Investigation Department.
C.I.D has been with us since the days of the colonial masters who introduced it to us
But let’s look at it critically from both lexical and grammatical perspectives.
What, in the expression, is “criminal?”
Is it the Investigation, which it qualifies as an adjective, that is criminal?
It cannot be. Investigation is carried out by the police or any other legal body so empowered. Or is it “Department” that is criminal? Surely not, that would be ridiculous.
So the expression “Criminal Investigation Department” would seem to have been an error committed by an officer in the English judiciary which was simply adopted and accepted with scarcely any attention given to its grammatical and lexical unwholesomeness.
The initials C.I.D should and ought to be for “Crime Investigation Department”. Simpliciter!
There is absolutely nothing criminal in an investigation carried out by a legal body.
Another interesting expression that is sadly mixed up in Nigeria is “Trouble shooter”.
Until the recent arrival of the computer which uses “trouble shooting” liberally and correctly, many Nigerians , unfamiliar with the American expression, believed that “trouble making” and “trouble shooting” were one and the same thing and could be interchangeable.
We now know that trouble shooting is practically shooting at trouble to solve it and that a “trouble shooter” is actually a peace maker and not the other way round.
At times wrong pronunciation of words leads to the wrong spelling of such words or group of words.
A typical example is “kith and kin”, meaning relations, but which most of our newspapers present as “kit and kin”.
If our editors can really sit down in their offices and edit the papers that carry their names in the imprint as editors, some of the very embarrassing errors found daily on the pages of the newspapers would be minimized.
Even though there are words in English like “kin” (relations) and “kit” (tools or the container of tools), there is nothing in the language like “kit and kin”.
Our reporters should always remember there is an “h” in the popular expression “kith and kin”.
The words “Summon” and “Summons” seem to confound our journalists pretty much and the reason for such an unnecessary confusion lies in the reporter’s ignorance of basic expressions of our law courts.
A qualified journalist should have done some aspects of law, especially laws that affect the press in the course of his training.
When a boss calls or sends for a subordinate it can be said that the boss summoned such a person.
But when a judicial officer issues a writ to bring a citizen to his court, it is called a “Summons” with plural as “Summonses”.
When a newspaper repeatedly uses the expression “a summon has been issued A, or B by the Chief Magistrate to appear before him” it smacks of illiteracy and requires a return to school by all concerned.
A “summons” is issued by a court and dispatched by a Bailiff to people needed to answer to some charges. So please my dear friends a court issues a summons to summon one to face the law.
If the summons is more than one, then it is summonses.
And finally, let’s look at our people Nd’Igbo and our desire to be like others.
The people up North have an Organization they call Arewa Forum; in the West their socio-cultural umbrella is called Afenifere.
Here in the East, a smart person invents the beautiful name “Ohaneze” which any Igbo person will recognize anywhere in the universe. But trust us, we have to add an unnecessary tag of “…”Nd’Igbo to Ohanaeze. Not that we should be ashamed of identifying ourselves as Igbo people.
The point is that some element of diplomacy and finesse should be seen in our national life.
It is a distinguishing accolade to answer “Ohaneze” which any true Igbo realizes as a code, an idiom, a canopy enclosing kings and their subjects.
Must we add “Nd’Igbo” to make it clear it is our own clarion call?
Former Abia Governor, Orji Uzor Kalu, has fallen into the same trap by calling his recently founded organization “Njiko Igbo”. “Njiko” is an Igbo word which, unlike Ohaneze, may not stand alone and make sense, So why not “Njiko Ndi Obodo Anyi” or something similar , but not just “Igbo”.
To a lot of Nigerians and for whatever reasons, our name “is not suitable in whistling”
Let me end with this Mbaise proverb which I have mercifully translated in English, hoping that the meaning is captured.
