Top Cutest and Strangest Nigerian English Idioms (II)
The expression is demotic and respectable enough in Nigerian English that even Chinua Achebe deploys it in a dialogue between his characters in the Anthills of the Savannah. On page 171 of the novel, Colonel Johnson Ossai says, “I have tried him at the Ministry of Information several times but he is not on seat. […]
The expression is demotic and respectable enough in Nigerian English that even Chinua Achebe deploys it in a dialogue between his characters in the Anthills of the Savannah. On page 171 of the novel, Colonel Johnson Ossai says, “I have tried him at the Ministry of Information several times but he is not on seat. I have tried his house but no answer. I wonder . . . erm … if you know…erm…his whereabouts.”
Our newspapers routinely write about public officers not being “on seat” to indicate they are away from their offices. “If [Yaradua] is not on seat for sometime, definitely the machinery of government will slow down…” the Sun wrote on January 18, 2010. In fact, the Nigerian Tribune quoted a Professor Godwin Onu, rector of the Federal Polytechnic, Oko, as railing against the “not-on-seat syndrome” in Nigeria!
8. “To ease oneself.” An alternative version of this idiom—which is completely absent in Nigerian English—is “to ease nature.” It means to urinate or defecate. This is an extremely archaic British English euphemism that has survived in Nigerian English—or perhaps West African English.
None of the current meanings of “ease” in modern dictionaries encapsulates this sense of the term. In American and British Standard English, the commonest uses of “ease” are: to move gently or carefully, as in: “he eased himself gently into the chair”; lessen pain or discomfort, as in: “the drug will ease the pain in your legs”; make easier, as in: “you could ease the problem by delegating duties to your subordinates”; lessen the intensity of something, as in: “the news eased my conscience.” There are many more modern uses of “ease” in contemporary dictionaries, but none of them refers to defecating or urinating.
9. “K-leg.” This is the Nigerian English word for the inward slant of the thigh that Americans and Britons call “knock knee” (adjective: knock-kneed). But in Nigerian English, “K-leg” means more than knock knee; it is also often used figuratively to refer to something that has gone awry, as in: “his plans have developed K-leg.”
My sense is that this expression slipped into educated Nigerian English through Pidgin English, although Americans also use the expression to describe K-shaped legs of tables. But I have never read or heard “K-leg” being used either literally or figuratively in reference to human beings in either American English or British English.
10. “Life history.” This phrase is used in Nigerian English where “life story” or “biography” would be preferred in British and American English. In Standard English, the phrase “life history” has mostly technical uses. It is used in biology and anthropology, for instance, to mean the life cycle of organisms. But in educated Nigerian English it is usual to encounter expressions like, “that man’s life history is inspiring.”
11. “Quite an age.” It’s an alternative expression for “long time no see” in Nigerian English. I have searched in dictionaries, books of idioms, and on the Internet to identify the provenance of this expression. I have so far been unsuccessful. I have found it only on Nigeria-related Internet sites or from Nigerian contributors to international online discussion forums. Unlike other idiosyncratic Nigerian expressions, “quite an age” doesn’t seem like old-fashioned British English. But it certainly isn’t a translation of native Nigerian languages either.
The native idiomatic expression for “long time no see” in Yoruba is “eku jo meta,” which roughly translates as “it’s been three days”; in Hausa it’s “kwana biu,” which translates as, “two days”; in Batonu, my language, it’s “bese ka so yiru,” which roughly translates as “it’s been two days”; and so on. The number of days in these expressions is not meant to be understood literally; it is used symbolically to connote a long time lapse.
“Quite an age” does not translate well in many Nigerian languages with which I am familiar. I hope someone reading this knows the origin of this really strange Nigerian English idiom.
12. “More grease to your elbow” or simply “more grease.” This is the default expression many Nigerians deploy when they want to say “bravo” or “well done” or just express applause for a nice job. It is certainly a distortion of the antiquated British expression “more power to your elbow,” which is derived from Irish English. But why do Nigerians render the expression as “more grease to your elbow” instead of the original “more power to your elbow”? It seems to me that it is because of the false attraction of the unrelated Standard English idiom “elbow grease,” which simply means hard work, that is, the use of physical energy, as in: “carpentry requires a lot of elbow grease.”
13. “To rub minds.” A language columnist in a Nigerian newspaper once wrote that this expression is uniquely Nigerian. I have found that this is not true. It’s actually an old-fashioned American English expression. Americans now tend to use the word “brainstorm” in its place. But “brainstorm” sounds rather formal, even pretentious, in Nigerian English.
14. “A cog in the wheel of progress,” also sometimes rendered as “a clog in the wheel of progress.” This is undoubtedly derived from the distortion of the Standard English idiom “a cog in the wheel,” also rendered as a “cog in the machine.” It means an insignificant but nonetheless essential person in a large organization, as in: “The lowly civil servant is a cog in the ministry’s machine.” But Nigerians use the idiom to mean a stumbling-block, a hindrance, as in: “Don’t mind that yeye [good-for-nothing] man; he is a cog [or clog] in the wheel of progress.”