Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Farooq, Funmi and Yona

As one who has worked for more than 50 yrs on learning French, and how to speak it, I can assure you the dictionary will not tell you how a word is used.

Really.

Not that it isn’t useful, but it fails because words exist, and have meaning, only in context with other words, and a dictionary can’t contain all those usages, nor accommodate all those changes.

Start w the word bad to see what I mean.

What does bad mean?

ken

 

Kenneth Harrow

Dept of English and Film Studies

Michigan State University

619 Red Cedar Rd

East Lansing, MI 48824

517-803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

http://www.english.msu.edu/people/faculty/kenneth-harrow/

 

From: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Mobolaji Aluko <alukome@gmail.com>
Reply-To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: Friday 28 October 2016 at 03:01
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Farooq, Funmi and Yona

 

TF:

 

This "outrught (ly)* war is all my fault.

 

I used the word innocently recently without ever knowing  that it had been  explicutly banned as non-standard by English  Professor Farooq (Faruk?) on these boards.  One of my usual caterwauling trasducers - fancifully called Nebukadineze (Nebukadnezzer?) - then wrote that it was not an English word at all, only for me to show that it exists in several reputable online dictionaries  (I have not bought a physical dictionary  in forty yesrs), only for Farooq to write that only words in the physical  Oxford dictionary  count, particularly in polite  company  should be used by educated professorial l elites like himself and yours truly.

 

But before Farooq actually came into the war - I know I shouldn't  start a sentence  with "but*, but who is grading?  - I had teased him by once signing off as mimicking him.  He took the bait in Trumpian fashion - with his admirers and detractors then taking him on ever since with Trumpian- and Clintonian-support gusto.  He has in the process shown  himself as a true English Language (Sergeant) Major, no pun intended. 

May I confess that in my 1970 WAEC, I got an A1 in English Language and Physics, A2 in Literature, Mathematics  and Chemistry and A3 in French and Biology (with a torrid C4 in BK which leaked in my year and had to be re-taken). Emulating one weird friend also prepsring for WASCE, I read a dictionary  daily, seeking a new word (and its usage and pronunciation) each day.  So I was really torn between becoming a Kperogi or myself - but God saved me, and I became an Engineer! 

 

So let us move on.  I will continue to use words as I see fit.  If you don't  know the meaning of any word that I use, please ask, and I will tell you.  If it is not in the dictionary  of your choice, please add it to the next edition - and I would thereby have joined the zillion makers of the language.

 

And there you have it.

 

 

Bolaji Aluko

 

 

On Thursday, October 27, 2016, Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:

Dear all:

 

Three members on this list provide the best in terms of service, far more than I can ever do:

 

Farooq on sensitivity to words, language, and governance. We cannot thank him enough. I cherish reading all his post and I actually send many of them to my students. I once challenged him in a private message to discuss how we can move forward as a nation as he has fresh ideas which break conventional boundaries and he is not a respecter of traditions that don’t work. 

 

Funmi on expanding our reading and creative horizons. We cannot thank her enough. I don’t know her, and I was touched as to how she reacted when she lost a friend and a relation, the professor killed by his driver.

 

Yona on resources to transform the continent. We are grateful.

 

The recent discussion on “outright” and “outrightly”, to me, contains outright distractions which may be outrightly unnecessary.  Stop.

 

Let us celebrate greatness when we see one: these three talented people are doing this generation a lot of service. Farooq is not driving down his ideas down anyone’s throat, just as prophets of change don’t accompany their words with AK47; Funmi is not calling anyone an illiterate for not reading her weekly recommended texts; and Yona is not asking anyone to use the resources.

 

Stay blessed, we all. I use “we all” in a deliberate version. Language is located in context and tradition: what is after 6 is more than 7. Someone sees 7, but others can see 13!  If you see 13, do not think the one who sees 7 is wrong.

TF

Toyin Falola

Department of History

The University of Texas at Austin

104 Inner Campus Drive

Austin, TX 78712-0220

USA

512 475 7224

512 475 7222 (fax)

http://sites.utexas.edu/yoruba-studies-review/

http://www.toyinfalola.com 

http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa  

http://groups.google.com/group/yorubaaffairs 

http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue   

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