There was a time in the distant past when I moved with some friends who felt their real names did not suit their status at the time. Hence, they went in search of nicknames. One of them, Seyi, came up with a name after combining her Zodiac sign, Leo, with Spark (which I can’t remember how it came about) to form the nickname SparkerLeo.
Then, answering to an English name was the fad and most girls and boys were not proud of their native names like Deji, Adeola, Aduke, among others. Names like Ricardo, Robert, and Anne were more or less the fad.
At the time, I just could not understand why my name should be a problem. Funke sounded funky to me, so I saw no reason to ‘funkify’ or replace it with a nickname. “You are an Old Skool,” Seyi once told me. “You have to move with the times, girl. You have to change your name, get a nickname or spell your ‘Funke’ differently. If you were in my school, my classmates would have made jest of you. You better wake up, girl.”
This incident reminds me of Basketmouth’s (the comedian) comment when he had his first child. He had to give the boy an English name so that “the boy will be proud of his name.” He also had to adopt an English name while growing up because he considered his native name too local. Until he shared his experience, I never knew I was not the only one caught in the web of inferiority complex with names. Many years after his experience, though, I do not understand why Basketmouth is still ruled by that complex such that he will pre-empt his son’s feeling about names even before the latter comes of age.
Today, the complex about naming is growing among the youth, and you need to be on Facebook to understand this trend. On someone’s page for instance, he spelt his name as: Haryour Changecentric Crown Prince. Note that Ayo is now spelt ‘Haryour.’
Another friend on Facebook also changed her name from Lola Kudi-Martins to Alolie Lucious Cuddy-Martins; while someone else spelt Azeez as ‘Harzyz.’ Blessing also took a new form in Blesyn, while Damilola is: ‘Darmylolar’. Ladi is now Ladehl and Gboyega has become a funkified Gboegha.
Some people have even changed their names completely. Hence, you have Olarenwaju Olakunle as Horlanrewaju Olahkunle and Timilehin Oluwatomilayo as Timmylehin Holuwartomilaryor. Some people prefer to just add a nick name to their original names and so there are names like: Marie Sugargurl, Weakywoody Adebayo, Yemi Thelengendary, Demmie Cutebear, to mention a few.
I have always thought that in Africa, especially in Nigeria, we attach great importance to what a child is called. Often, the circumstances surrounding a child’s birth usually inform his/her name. But today, there is a great movement among ‘young’ people to recreate or reinvent their names and who they are. It’s a kind of creativity, you’d agree, a fusion of Yoruba and English spelling of names. But it’s a creativity I am not totally comfortable with. I believe boldly saying my name is Funke shows the kind of person I am, how much I am are proud of my name, and the kind of confidence I exude.
I can recall that in one of my literature classes as an undergraduate, my lecturer, Wale Oyedele of blessed memory, recounted his experience while in the United States. A ‘white man’ could not pronounce his name correctly, so he had to take his time to teach the man that his name has just two syllables, /wa/, /le/; hence, their should be no difficulty pronouncing it properly. That, however, is no longer the case as more and more people feel comfortable ‘Englishnising’ their names.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Watch out for that death hole
My car landed in the pothole with a great thud and I could feel my head hitting the roof when it did. "Ouch!" I screamed. No one was beside me to say sorry, so I rubbed my head with one hand while I controlled the steering with the other.
But just before I could travel a few more metres, the car encountered another pothole. I thought I could dodge it, but while trying to achieve that, yet another reared its ugly head. The road I was journeying on was not on the Mainland which is notorious for pothole-riddled roads. It was at Ikoyi, our very own highbrow Ikoyi.
When I was a little girl, living at Ikoyi was like some sort of Eldorado. I can recall living with my family in Gbagada at the time, when going to the Ikoyi Club every weekend was the norm. And so, on one of such visits to the club, I made a new friend while practising how to swim with my instructor in the pool.
"I can swim faster than you now," Nkechi told me.
"I can see that," I said, laughing at her poor attempt at swimming.
"Will you be here next weekend?" she asked me in a bid to change the conversation.
"Yes," I replied.
"Where do you live?" she asked.
"Gbagada."
"Oh, I thought you live at Dolphin Estate like me."
"No, I don't." She went on to explain how Ikoyi especially Dolphin Estate, were hubs for the rich due to its well-tarred roads, flowers on the sidewalk, among others. Today, however, the story is not the same. Ikoyi has become a shadow of its old self.
A friend who loves the good life got herself a nice 2006 Passat car. It is a beautiful car by all standards, sweet to drive and sweet to be seen in. It is a powerful vehicle but deceptively slow. Because it is a big car and well balanced, when you drive it, you often don't realise you are flying instead of driving. That's to tell you how sleek the car is. However, one day, my friend found herself caught in one of the mega potholes on Ikoyi Road. She had firsthand experience of the disadvantages that come with driving on Nigerian roads which she never had while residing in the US. Driving on Nigerian roads, she learnt, is the art of dodging pot holes and you have to be very good at it.
In most cases, as a driver, you have no choice in the matter; you just have to deep your car into the pot holes, especially when you are driving on the inner roads. Interestingly, some interior parts of the Mainland are not spared from the jump-driving experience.
Perhaps the mistake my friend made was buying a car as low as a Passat which is not made for pothole-riddled roads. Often, she complains about how she had to crawl from one hole to another while her speedometer which loves to see red becomes a useless tool that stands at the bottom of the meter. Her shock absorber is another part of the car she fears will go bad soon.
She once drew my attention to how deceptive Nigerian roads could be since she often got carried away after driving on a smooth road for about six minutes, without knowing a pothole could be up ahead. Hence, by the time she applied her break, she would have fallen into the hole. I have had a similar experience too many times so I have learnt to be more cautious when driving since potholes have become speed breakers of sorts.
But just before I could travel a few more metres, the car encountered another pothole. I thought I could dodge it, but while trying to achieve that, yet another reared its ugly head. The road I was journeying on was not on the Mainland which is notorious for pothole-riddled roads. It was at Ikoyi, our very own highbrow Ikoyi.
When I was a little girl, living at Ikoyi was like some sort of Eldorado. I can recall living with my family in Gbagada at the time, when going to the Ikoyi Club every weekend was the norm. And so, on one of such visits to the club, I made a new friend while practising how to swim with my instructor in the pool.
"I can swim faster than you now," Nkechi told me.
"I can see that," I said, laughing at her poor attempt at swimming.
"Will you be here next weekend?" she asked me in a bid to change the conversation.
"Yes," I replied.
"Where do you live?" she asked.
"Gbagada."
"Oh, I thought you live at Dolphin Estate like me."
"No, I don't." She went on to explain how Ikoyi especially Dolphin Estate, were hubs for the rich due to its well-tarred roads, flowers on the sidewalk, among others. Today, however, the story is not the same. Ikoyi has become a shadow of its old self.
A friend who loves the good life got herself a nice 2006 Passat car. It is a beautiful car by all standards, sweet to drive and sweet to be seen in. It is a powerful vehicle but deceptively slow. Because it is a big car and well balanced, when you drive it, you often don't realise you are flying instead of driving. That's to tell you how sleek the car is. However, one day, my friend found herself caught in one of the mega potholes on Ikoyi Road. She had firsthand experience of the disadvantages that come with driving on Nigerian roads which she never had while residing in the US. Driving on Nigerian roads, she learnt, is the art of dodging pot holes and you have to be very good at it.
In most cases, as a driver, you have no choice in the matter; you just have to deep your car into the pot holes, especially when you are driving on the inner roads. Interestingly, some interior parts of the Mainland are not spared from the jump-driving experience.
Perhaps the mistake my friend made was buying a car as low as a Passat which is not made for pothole-riddled roads. Often, she complains about how she had to crawl from one hole to another while her speedometer which loves to see red becomes a useless tool that stands at the bottom of the meter. Her shock absorber is another part of the car she fears will go bad soon.
She once drew my attention to how deceptive Nigerian roads could be since she often got carried away after driving on a smooth road for about six minutes, without knowing a pothole could be up ahead. Hence, by the time she applied her break, she would have fallen into the hole. I have had a similar experience too many times so I have learnt to be more cautious when driving since potholes have become speed breakers of sorts.
The Wazobia storyteller
I once took part in an informal competition on story telling, but it was a poor outing for me because I didn’t have that ‘sweet mouth’ – the sort of ‘sweetness’ that comes with storytelling which can hold the audience spellbound for hours, perhaps days. That day, I actually enjoyed the presentations of two friends blessed with the power of oratory.
You see, traditionally in Africa, storytellers are revered and so are good stories. Although old writing traditions do exist on the continent, most people today, as in the past, are primarily oral people and their art forms are oral rather than literary.
Oral literature or Orature, to use the term of Ngugi wa Thiong’o, the Kenyan writer, is orally composed and transmitted, verbally created and performed with dance and music. This art is rich and varied and the composer or storyteller must be skilled in the art. His facial gestures, voice and ability to play the roles of different characters are integral parts of the storytelling.
Language is also a vital tool because with it, he could create a vivid picture of the scenes in the minds of his audience. This brings to mind the man I have tagged ‘Wazobia storyteller’. I am an ardent listener of Wazobia FM and enjoy all their programmes. Perhaps the aspect I enjoy the most every morning is the News belt anchored by Nedu. For me, his style of news reading is different. Often, he gives me the impression that I am listening to some tales which he creates himself, yet they are actually real news served in a style different from the regular ones.
His style is really engaging and instantly commands my attention any time the news bulleting is on. Perhaps the language he employs, pidgin, also allows him to employ the freestyle of news casting. His mannerisms while reading the news create that live picture in the mind of the listener such that most times, I cannot help but imagine how the item on the news bulleting happened. One instance was the news story on complaints about the failure of the fingerprint machines to capture some people’s fingerprints. Nedu was at it again with his verve. The ‘sweetness’ in his mouth was played up as he passed across INEC’s advice on how to overcome that nightmare. “Make sure you clean ya hand well, well so that the machine no go select ya hand,” he said.
There was yet another story on the Somalia Pirates. Hear Nedu’s explanation on who pirates are: “The Somalia Pirates dem be people wey dey colobi pesin on top of water.” There was another story on women who were raped in Britain, and without sounding vulgar, Nedu used this phrase to drive home his message: “Torchlight the website of 50 women.”
Of course, there are those who write and edit news script, but the taste of the pudding for the listener is in the delivery. That is the ability of the newscaster to deliver the news the way it should be. Nedu, for me, has been able to do that brilliantly using pidgin. His mouth dey sweet for news casting no be small!
I am sure he must have been one of those who listened to those village storytellers who were experts at telling stories about secular tricksters like the Tortoise who often project the kinds of evil forces and bad behaviours against which the human community must contend to survive. He must have acquired that ‘sweet mouth’ from them
You see, traditionally in Africa, storytellers are revered and so are good stories. Although old writing traditions do exist on the continent, most people today, as in the past, are primarily oral people and their art forms are oral rather than literary.
Oral literature or Orature, to use the term of Ngugi wa Thiong’o, the Kenyan writer, is orally composed and transmitted, verbally created and performed with dance and music. This art is rich and varied and the composer or storyteller must be skilled in the art. His facial gestures, voice and ability to play the roles of different characters are integral parts of the storytelling.
Language is also a vital tool because with it, he could create a vivid picture of the scenes in the minds of his audience. This brings to mind the man I have tagged ‘Wazobia storyteller’. I am an ardent listener of Wazobia FM and enjoy all their programmes. Perhaps the aspect I enjoy the most every morning is the News belt anchored by Nedu. For me, his style of news reading is different. Often, he gives me the impression that I am listening to some tales which he creates himself, yet they are actually real news served in a style different from the regular ones.
His style is really engaging and instantly commands my attention any time the news bulleting is on. Perhaps the language he employs, pidgin, also allows him to employ the freestyle of news casting. His mannerisms while reading the news create that live picture in the mind of the listener such that most times, I cannot help but imagine how the item on the news bulleting happened. One instance was the news story on complaints about the failure of the fingerprint machines to capture some people’s fingerprints. Nedu was at it again with his verve. The ‘sweetness’ in his mouth was played up as he passed across INEC’s advice on how to overcome that nightmare. “Make sure you clean ya hand well, well so that the machine no go select ya hand,” he said.
There was yet another story on the Somalia Pirates. Hear Nedu’s explanation on who pirates are: “The Somalia Pirates dem be people wey dey colobi pesin on top of water.” There was another story on women who were raped in Britain, and without sounding vulgar, Nedu used this phrase to drive home his message: “Torchlight the website of 50 women.”
Of course, there are those who write and edit news script, but the taste of the pudding for the listener is in the delivery. That is the ability of the newscaster to deliver the news the way it should be. Nedu, for me, has been able to do that brilliantly using pidgin. His mouth dey sweet for news casting no be small!
I am sure he must have been one of those who listened to those village storytellers who were experts at telling stories about secular tricksters like the Tortoise who often project the kinds of evil forces and bad behaviours against which the human community must contend to survive. He must have acquired that ‘sweet mouth’ from them
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)