By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D. Twitter: @farooqkperogi In this week’s Q and A, you will find answers to questions on the difference bet...
By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
Twitter: @farooqkperogi
In
this week’s Q and A, you will find answers to questions on the difference
between the expressions “in conclusion” and “conclusively”; whether “bushman”
is Standard English and, if not, what its Standard English equivalents are;
when to use “dinner” or “supper” to refer to evening meal; and whether it’s
acceptable to refer to female directors as “directresses” and female
proprietors as “proprietresses,” as Nigerian TV newscasters do. Enjoy:
Question:
What’s
the difference between “conclusively” and “in conclusion”? A friend told me I
was wrong to end an essay with “conclusively.” I told him “in conclusion” and
“conclusively” can be used interchangeably. Am I wrong?
Answer:
Yes,
you are wrong. Although many Nigerians, including Nigerian journalists, use
these expressions interchangeably, “in conclusion” and “conclusively” are
actually dissimilar. Conclusively means “once and for all,” as in, “we settled
the problem conclusively.” It can also mean “convincingly” or “irrefutably,” as
in, “the report conclusively proves that he is the most corrupt president in
the country.”
That
means it isn’t proper to end an essay, as many Nigerians do, by writing
“Conclusively…” That should be, “In conclusion.” The appropriate expression to
use when introducing the last item in a series or an essay is “in conclusion,”
not “conclusively.”
Question:
Is
it true that the expressions “bush man” or “bush woman” or “bush people” aren’t
Standard English expressions? If true, what expressions do native English
speakers use in their place to refer to someone who is from the village?
Answer:
I
had answered this question in a March 16 2014 Q and A article, but since
several people have also asked this question over the past few weeks, I will
reproduce my earlier response, with some additions, for the benefit of people
who missed it the first time:
“Bush
man,” especially the way it’s used in Nigerian English, isn’t Standard English.
It’s a Pidgin English expression that has found its way into the standard
varieties of English spoken and written in Anglophone West Africa. Last year,
for instance, when Ghanaian president John Dramani Mahama delivered a lecture
at Kennesaw State University in the United States where I teach, he used the
expression “bushman” in ways his audience didn’t understand. In a passage he
read from his recently published autobiography, he jokingly described one of
his high school classmates as a “bush man.” Most people in the audience had no
clue what he meant. I know this because no American laughed. Only the few
Ghanaians and Nigerians in the audience giggled.
Most
native English speakers in Britain and America understand “Bushman” (plural:
Bushmen; note the uppercase “B”) to mean the hunter-gatherer ethnic group in
southern African now known as the “San.” The term emerged in the 18th century
from the Afrikaan word “boschjesman,”
which literally translates as “man of the bush.” It was the word the white
settlers in South Africa used to refer to the San people who number nearly
100,000 and who can be found in Botswana, Namibia, Angola, and South Africa.
Western anthropologists and journalists who studied and wrote about the San
people adopted the Afrikaan name for the people and helped popularize it beyond
the shores of southern Africa.
“Bush
man” also appears in Australian and New Zealand English to mean a pioneer or a
man who literally lives in the bush. It can also mean a person who travels or
lives in the bush and is intimately familiar with the ways of the bush. But the
term isn’t derogatory in Australian and New Zealand English. Their equivalent
of the West African English “bush person” is “bogan.”
In West African English, “bushman” or “bush
woman”—or any variation of the term, such as “bush people”—is a pejorative term
for an unsophisticated person who isn’t versed in the ways of the world. It’s
traditionally reserved for farouche, provincial rural dwellers, but it can be
used to refer to any unworldly person, especially one who lacks social skills.
In
American English, such a person would be called a “hillbilly” or a “hick.” In
British English, such a person would be called a “(country) bumpkin” or a
“yokel.”
If
President Mahama had described his high school classmate as a “hick” or a
“hillbilly,” the Americans in the audience would have understood him and
laughed.
Other
names native English speakers use for what Anglophone West Africans call “bush
people” are “rustics,” “peasants,” and “rednecks” (which is exclusively American).
Question:
A
friend just told me we misuse the word “dinner” in Nigerian English, but he
couldn’t articulate how we misuse it. He then referred me to your column in Sunday Trust and said I should send you
an email for clarification. Have you written on this before?
Answer:
I
addressed this in my forthcoming book. Nigerians understand “dinner” to
invariably mean evening meal. Native English speakers, however, use it to
denote the main meal of the day, which can either be in the middle of the day
or in the evening. Most Nigerians have their main meals in the afternoon and
have light meals in the evening, which means many Nigerians actually have
dinners in the afternoons. Native speakers informally refer to any mid-day
meal, whether it’s light or heavy, as “lunch,” and call light evening meal
“supper,” which is almost absent in Nigerian English. Additionally, “dinner” is
a more formal meal than “supper.”
Question:
I
love all your articles in Sunday Trust
and Weekly Trust. I am also one of
your followers on Twitter. I have a question to ask you and it goes as follows:
Is the use of these words in grammar right: “directress” from “director” and “Proprietress”
from “Proprietor.” I checked them in the
dictionary and couldn't find them, but some TV stations make use of them in Nigeria.
Answer:
Gender
differentiation of occupational roles through the addition of the “ess” suffix
is now, for the most part, outdated at best and offensive at worst. The new
norm is to have genderless occupational titles. So, in modern usage, a proprietor
refers to both a male and a female owner of a business. Similarly, a “director”
isn’t invariably male; it can also be a woman.
By
the same token, it is now customary to refer to airline cabin personnel as
simply “flight attendants” rather than as “stewardesses” (for women) and
“stewards” (for men). Words like authoress, editress, poetess, and sculptress are
also now considered pejorative and should be avoided. Use author, editor, poet,
and sculptor instead. If you want to indicate that a woman is an expert at a
subject, don’t say she’s a “mistress of” it; say she is a “master of” it.
Mistress, especially in American English, now primarily means a woman who has
extramarital relationship with a man. Although many people use “actress” to
refer to female actors, women actors increasingly object to being called
“actresses,” a prominent example being Whoopi Goldberg.
However, there are still a few gendered nouns in
modern English that don’t cause offense. The Random House Dictionary says these
words can be affixed with the “ess” suffix without inviting the wrath of
feminists: adventuress; enchantress; heiress; hostess; millionairess; murderess;
seamstress; seductress; sorceress; temptress; and waitress
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