‘Avert’ or ‘Avoid’?

EXPRESSION BY Ebere Wabara

DAILY Sun Editorial of June 8 welcomes us today with three slip-ups: “The incident which occurred at the Kings (sic) Church Assembly’s annual free food programme at Polo Club in Port Harcourt GRA ought to have been avoided (averted) with adequate crowd control.”

“We call on the Rivers State government to institute a probe on (into) the matter with a view to finding out the immediate and remote causes of the stampede.” By the way, ‘Immediate and remote causes’ sounds trite—there should be other ways to express this!

“…we call on the government (yet another cliché within seconds of the first offence!) and the police to develop adequate crowd control (crowd-control) strategies to forestall such incidents in future.” Just end the sentence by deleting ‘in future’. Would it have been ‘in the past’?

“24 years after, your memories lives (how and why?) on”

“When history speaks of the very (no amplification for the next word) best examples of patriotic Nigeria (Nigerian) leaders….”

“Sports Minister congratulates Gumel over (on/upon) award”

“NFF reiterates Nigeria, S/Leone will be behind closed door (doors)” Horrible omission: Nigeria, S/Leone match…

THE GUARDIAN of May 24 nurtured confusion: “Move to reduce new plate number, driver’s licence prices fail (sic)” A rewrite: Move to reduce new number plate, driver’s licence prices fails.

“Towards making Nigeria a malaria free nation” (DAILY INDEPENDENT Life, May 24) Get it right: malaria-free nation

DAILY INDEPENDENT of May 23 committed three infelicities: “Al-Makura flags-off (flags off) N58m drug revolving loan scheme” 

“Aliyu: Securing Niger with vigilante (vigilance) group” There is a difference between ‘vigilance’ and ‘vigilante’ which consequently also affects their application.

“It is this remarkable principle of honour that makes him enjoy a mutual relationship with horde of aspirants….” Comment: a horde of aspirants or hordes of aspirants, depending on context.

“This government will do the right thing as soon as the judiciary puts its acts (act) together.” 

“Man arraigned in court over N2.4m fraud” Where else would he have been arraigned?

Let us take the next three improprieties from THE NATION of May 23: “…and most times, access on (to) the Internet are (is) not readily available….”

“…he said he has (had) not seen any evil signal.”

THISDAY of May 23 offered readers these vacuous lines: “PDP will reclaim Lagos” According to the 7th Edition of Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, ‘reclaim’ means ‘to get something back or to ask to have it back after it has been lost, taken away, etc.’ Whoever cast this jaundiced headline must have been thoughtlessly busy: how can the roguish, murderous and visionless party reclaim what it never had and will never have? There is what is known as interpretative reporting—it is not rehash journalism: whatever anyone says must be edited for clarity, brevity, good public health and sensible readership. Advertorials can be tolerated—certainly not news items.

“Playing ostrich as another oil-fuelled banking crises brews” (Full-page advert by OTL Africa Downstream) Singular: crisis; plural: crises. The decision is theirs!

“The establishment of a polytechnic will compliment (complement) the two existing universities….” (THE GUARDIAN, May 23)

“Navy arrests ship over (for) illegal bunkering” (Source: as above)

THE PUNCH of May 23 was also rounded up by my lexical court marshals on three occasions: “Police arrest two students over (for) colleague’s death”

“What Harvard has joined together…” Must we stick to biblical grammatical standards (what God has joined together) and outdated dictionaries? Formal: What Harvard has joined…(without the ‘together’ stuff which is implied)! As we all should know, languages, especially English, are dynamic.

Vanguard of May 22 deserves to be sanctioned: “IGP threatens to sanction policemen who harrass journalists” Spell-check: harass/embarrass.

“G8 endorse (endorses) UN peace mission in Ukraine” (Source: as above)

THE NATION of May 22 was devoid of scholarship: “This is what the Parents/Teachers Association (PTA) of Queen’s College, Lagos….” Stock expression; Parent-Teacher Association of….

Next on the line-up is TRIBUNE of 22 May which could not make a morphological distinction: “…the Nigerian state was literarily (literally) on a tailspin.”

DAILY INDEPENDENT Politics of May 22 disseminated four blunders: “…the greed of those who by do or die (do-or-die) processes found themselves in the corridor (corridors) of power….”

“…the ruling party or be a presidential boot-leaker (bootlicker).”

“It is the failure of governance that has resulted to (in) the lack of electric power supply….”   

“Our grouse with SWF, by Fashola” (THISDAY, May 17) My grouse about (not with) poor English usage by colleagues of mine.

“The deluge of encomium (encomiums) that have continued to trail….” (TRIBUNE, May 17)

National News of May 17 circulated three improprieties: “”Anyaoku proffers solution to Nigeria’s stability (instability)”

“Man arrested over (for) death threats”

“A student that cannot meet up with a set standard won’t be promoted into (to) the next class and if….”

“Odubela tasks teachers on frequent trainings” (THISDAY, May 24) Education Today: ‘training’ is uncountable.

 “More grease to your elbow.” (Radio Nigeria News Analysis, May 24) More power (not grease!) to all readers of this column.

“Incidences of conjoined twins are not new….” (NTA Morning Belt, May 24) We now know how they come about: incidents, not incidences, please.

“8 policemen arrested over extortion” (Daily Trust, May 24) When will police criminality stop going the rounds? They will always be arrested for (not over) extortion and banditry!

“But even at that, labour was not overtly involved in the arrests and detentions that followed.” (Leadership, May 24) ‘Detention’ is uncountable.

“In fact, it looks like increase in the prices of petroleum products has (have) became (sic) an annual ritual.” (DAILY News, May 24)

“Female lawmakers angry over treatment meted to them by their male colleagues.” (The Moment, May 24)  No chauvinism: meted out to.

“…until 1998 when individuals and groups converged in (on) Italy.…”

“I throdded that strange land and it took the grace of God to survive.” What is going on? ‘Throdded? Vide a standard dictionary.

“Unfortunately for the US government, majority (a majority) of the UN members were….”