Hypercorrection in Nigerian English (I)

Such people may insist, for instance, that the expression “between you and me” is wrong because they have been taught that the sentence, “You and me should get together” is wrong. But “between you and me” is perfectly correct, and “between you and I” is patently wrong. I will explain why this is so shortly. […]

Such people may insist, for instance, that the expression “between you and me” is wrong because they have been taught that the sentence, “You and me should get together” is wrong. But “between you and me” is perfectly correct, and “between you and I” is patently wrong. I will explain why this is so shortly. But, first, what gives rise to hypercorrection?

Well, my theory is that prescriptivist grammarians, that is, grammarians who hand down frozen, ossified usage commandments without context, contribute to the flowering of hypercorrection. This column tries to avoid that by being descriptivist, that is, by discussing usage rules and exploring their contexts with minimal value judgments.

Before I identify the hypercorrections that seem unique to Nigerian English, let me quickly point out the rules for the examples I cited earlier. You use “me” and “whom,” etc. only in instances where these pronouns are the objects of a verb, that is, where they are the recipients of an action in a sentence. Another way to remember the rule is to note that if a preposition (such as “between,” “to,” “with,” etc.) comes before a pronoun, that pronoun often takes the objective case. (“Who” is subjective case while “whom” is objective case; “I” is subjective case while “me” is objective case).

If that is still not helpful, simply remember that “you and I” is the same thing as “we” while “you and me” is the same thing as “us.” So when you are confused about where and when to use “you and I” and “you and me” simply substitute them with “we” and “us.” Now, let me go to more specific examples of hypercorrection in Nigerian English.

About a year ago, distinguished journalist and Daily Trust columnist Mohammed Haruna isolated my characterization of alleged would-be Christmas bomber Umar Farouk Abdul-Mutallab as a “crazed, fanatical, spoiled brat” to illustrate what he called a “disagreeable description” of the young man.

But in quoting me, he inserted the conjunction “and” to mark off the list of adjectives of disapproval I unleashed on the terrorist suspect. The full sentence ran thus: “Mutallab Jnr may seem a “crazed, fanatical (and) spoiled brat,” to use the rather disagreeable description – at least in my view – by his namesake, Farooq Kperogi, a writer in the Weekly Trust of January 2….”

First of all, it is wrong to indicate the addition of comments to a quoted text with parentheses. The correct punctuation mark to use is square brackets, that is, this sign: [ ]. The reason is that the original sentence you are quoting may have a parenthesis and readers would be confused as to who actually used the parenthesis. So Haruna’s sentence should correctly read: “Mutallab Jnr may seem a ‘crazed, fanatical [and] spoiled brat,’ to use the rather disagreeable description – at least in my view – by his namesake, Farooq Kperogi, a writer in the Weekly Trust of January 2….”

But Haruna committed the grammatical offense of hypercorrection by inserting the conjunction “and” to my list. Relying on the analogy from the rules on the use of commas in listing two or more items, (usually nouns) in a sentence, he probably thought he was straightening my sentence. But this is why he was wrong.

In grammar, a distinction is often made between the rules for listing cumulative adjectives and co-ordinate adjectives in a sentence. Cumulative adjectives organically build up a picture, with each adjective building on the one before; there are no commas between the adjectives. Example: the cute little young girl. The adjectives “cute,” “little,” and “young” cannot be set off by commas because they are building on each other to paint a mental portrait of the noun that they describe.

With co-ordinate adjectives, however, each adjective refers to the noun separately and distinctly, so there must be a comma between each adjective. Example: “That tall, distinguished, good-looking fellow.”

In the above example, it would rudely disrupt the flow of the sentence if we inserted “and” before “good-looking.” Although the adjectives refer to the noun separately, they also build up a picture of the noun, which an “and” would disrupt. Such a consideration does not arise when you are listing nouns. (Haruna is clearly applying the rules for listing nouns to the rules for listing adjectives).

In our own case, additionally, “spoiled” almost always co-occurs with “brat” in conversational English so that “spoiled brat” now functions as a collocation. (A collocation is a group of words which appears together in a sentence more often than would be expected by chance). So the phrase “crazed, fanatical, spoiled brat” actually combines elements of the rules for listing cumulative and coordinate adjectives in a sentence and, therefore, inserting a comma anywhere in the sentence amounts to hypercorrection.

Another hypercorrection that is rampant in many grammar columns in Nigerian newspapers is the misapplication of the delicate distinction between the prepositions “among” and “between.” The general rule is that where more than two participants are involved “among” should be preferred to “between,” as in: “the candies were divided between the two girls/among the three girls.”

However, the rule is more complex than that. Both American and British grammarians—and, for that matter, Australian and New Zealand grammarians, all native speakers of the English language—agree that when we speak of exact positions or of precise individual relationships, “between” is the only acceptable choice.

For instance, it is wrong to write: “A memorandum of understanding among five African countries.” It should properly be “A memorandum of understanding BETWEEN five African countries. “African” brings precision to the relationship. Similarly, it is wrong to say “Nigeria lies among Cameroun, Niger, Benin and Chad.” It should be “Nigeria lies BETWEEN Cameroun, Niger, Benin and Chad.” The mention of the names of countries surrounding Nigeria brings exactness to the relationship.