Nigeria: How Political Elite Influence English Grammar and Vocabulary

3 February 2013

When I wrote about President Goodluck Jonathan's grammatical boo-boos last week, part of my motivation was to contribute to the conversation about how elite grammatical infractions contribute to the decline or vitality of English usage. While Goodluck Jonathan is certainly the worst abuser of the English language in the history of Nigerian presidency, but he is by no means the only prominent political or cultural figure to violate the lexis and structure of the language in the English-speaking world.

In this week's column, I chronicle a sample of unorthodox elite usages that have acquired prestige over time, and wonder if Jonathanisms, (as I call the idiosyncratic grammatical slips of President Jonathan) might enjoy some acceptance in the pantheon of English usage in the future.

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