By Abubakar Shamsudeen
Musa(a fictional name), is a Political Science student at Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto.
The 26-year-old man has developed and become a master in the field of using big vocabularies. In fact, Musa’s friends would never agree with anybody that Professor Wole Soyinka can compete with their own Musa when it comes to blowing out big vocabularies.
He lives alone in a self-contained apartment. His neighbors always find it difficult to ignite a conversation with him because the English words Musa would vomit are capable of resuscitating a dead man.
Do you know that even lecturers in his department are also afraid to ask him questions in the class? They have warned him several times about speaking those big words just to impress his audience.
One day, when Musa was preparing to graduate from UDUS, something happened.
Musa packed all his luggage including his credentials. Unfortunately, he forgot to switch off his electric iron after using it. Before he could realized what is happening, fire begins to devour Musa’s materials and credentials
after his Gas Cooker exploded.
He quickly picks up his phone and calls the fire service emergency number. But the conversation between him and the fire service is a fire of big vocabularies.
Musa: Hello, am I confabulating with the fire service agency?
Fire Service: Sir, what do you mean, we are not the ones confabulating, we only render emergency help
Musa: Okay. That’s exactly what I want.
Fire Service: Okay sir, give me your address and our agent will be there in 10 minutes.
Musa: 10mins equivalent to 600 secs is a lot.
Fire Service: Okay sir, what’s your complaint?
Musa: A gravitatee with immediate alacrity, a gigantic acceleration bunch into my inhabitant.
Fire Service: What are you saying? Sir, I don’t understand oo
Musa: This is couscous, attenuating and flabbergasting. I mean a gravitatee with immediate alacrity, a gigantic acceleration bunch into my inhabitant. And it is puzzlementing my fabulous, effeminate, and glamorous bungalow.
To cut it short, before the fire service agent could find the meaning of Musa’s words in the dictionary, Musa razed Musa’s house completely.
Imagine Musa, even the white man speaks for understanding. Instead of him saying; Abeg make una come, fire they burn my house; simple. He was there speaking and blowing vocabulary that cannot be spelled…
The Lesson
The most essential part of a language is comprehension. So, if you are speaking and nobody understands, you have not spoken language, rather speak something else.
So speak for easy understanding.
In conclusion, my fellow English users, a grammarian, always construct simple grammar. that people understand.