Of concord, spices of language, solecisms

In the recent past, the University of Cape Coast required all first-year entrants to become English language proficient.

In that regard, Communicative Skills (CS) was taught for one whole academic year by lecturers across the university’s departments. 

It was anticipated that by the end of one’s sojourn on campus, one would be adequately equipped to deliver standard long essays to the school. 

Everyone who got admission and derived some benefit from the university was bound to contribute some wealth of knowledge for the generations following.

Interestingly, it was because of CS that some mates of mine got to be closely acquainted with the then senior staff member, Dr Jane Naana Opoku-Agyeman (now the Vice-President of the Republic of Ghana).

They described her as prodigious and kind, for she used to bestow profuse marks upon minimal efforts.

Skills

Communicative skills consisted of an array of English language topics, not least Concord, Spices of Language, and Solecisms.

Concord, also known as subject-verb agreement, is an object of profound mistreatment by very many English language speakers in Ghana. 

Politicians, journalists, lawyers, jurists, teachers, et al., tend to overlook this grammatical rule in sentence construction, which requires the subject and verb in a discourse to agree in number (singular and plural).

Consider the following excerpts from statements recently made by politicians and some journalists:

• "Expectation of (cocoa) farmers were heightened by..." (Culled from the Minority’s presser on the government’s promise to cocoa farmers).

• "There is no power outages..." (A part of a statement on dumsor in Kumasi from a news reporter to a big radio station in Accra).
• "The opportunities available is not..." (An MP’s contribution to the statement made by a colleague MP in Parliament to mark the Social Justice Day).

Concord

Patently, concord has been broken in these few examples, and it’s concerning because it has been committed by people whom Ghanaians would look up to for a neat delivery.

As points of correction, the examples supra should become as follows:

I. "Expectation(s) of cocoa farmers was (were) heightened."

II. "There is (are) no power outage(s)."

III. "The opportunities available are (not is) not adequate."

Hendiadys, however, is the exception to the rule.

Spices

Spices of language, unlike concord, are composed of idiomatic expressions, figurative expressions, etc., which make written or spoken language fragrant (and sometimes useful) but which are dispensable.

So, a chink in my armour, which simply means my weakness, could make a sentence flowery.

But too much of such could lead to confusion or miscommunication because the meaning may not come to the reader or the listener readily.

However, like concord, solecisms also breach language rules and so they must be avoided.

Misspellings, misplaced adjectives, mispronunciations, and improper use of punctuation marks are just a few linguistic errors that must be checked in oral and written language to ensure clarity and impact.

To all who feel let down by my concord, my advice is found in the Song of Solomon 2:15, which reads: "Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vine..." (KJV). Linguistic errors are vincible, though it takes constant practice to erase them.

The writer is with Ghana Post, Accra.
E-mail: Emmanuelyawowusu10@
gmail.com