Funny you should say that!
Bongi D D M Radipati | Monday March 4, 2024 06:00
But occasionally, a word or expression will transcend mere fashion and preference and have character, a zeitgeist for the year we are in. Enter the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the world’s most authoritative English language dictionary, and its choice of the word of the year.
The OED has been choosing an annual word since 2004. It was “chav” for 2004 all the way to “rizz” for 2023. Bizarrely, there was no OED chosen word for 2020. If it was left to me, I might have chosen “cover up” for that time of the COVID-19 pandemic. It would be appropriate for the masses of people who covered up with face masks, through pharmaceutical companies that may have covered up vaccine trials that went awry, and right up to authorities that may have covered up the pandemic’s origin, intensity, mortality rates, etc. Some of the OED’s annual chosen words are abbreviated English words for all sorts of fancy stuff; some sound like they are the jargon of outlaws, despots, and bullies; and some even appear to be a deliberate act against seriousness! Whatever they are, these words plumb our idea of ourselves and come to us with a wealth of puns and fun.
Here are the simple ironies of this annual OED word exercise. One quality of the chosen annual word is that for as long as it is the word of the moment, it remains a curious, fleeting form of lexicon, with a power over speech that is as strong as it is temporal. Another is that, while those who choose these annual words (the language experts at OED) are possibly as old as you and I, in reality the words chosen are often used by Generation Z, that is those born between 1997 and 2012. These young people have to contend with a lot.
They have to experience their coming of age now which is a hard time even for their parents. Then they have to live with their self-absorption which admittedly is a rite of passage for all youngsters. And still they are expected to accept the appropriation of their lingua franca by people old enough to be their parents! But then, perhaps the zingy language of the youth may be just what we need. For as long as we can manage to keep using it, it may help us to resist cliches about adult life.
As I reflected on this matter, it got me thinking about us in Botswana. We are a nation of words. This is not so much because we write many words. (Funnily, I do not think we do!) Rather, I believe that it is because we use words often. As a rule, we tend to be people of chatting and conversation. (Listen to any of our radio stations and the chances are that you will get an earful of conversations.) In other words, we are aesthetes of speech. Our vernacular has words and expressions that may have multiple meanings. In our oral poetry, along with the poet’s almost reflexive request for a favor from a member of the elite, some disconcerting words and expressions are a given. We take this wordy culture seriously. In fact, we take it as both a defense of our free speech and a cherished oral tradition. Which brings us here.
The Irish have Waiting for Godot, a farcical, yet delightful play that turned 70 years in January. The play depicts two men talking nonstop to pass time while they wait for their death. Even when these men agree to leave, after waiting endlessly, they do not leave. To them, hope is accepting that what is inevitable may be delayed. We, in Botswana, could have Waiting for Rain, a fantastical depiction of ordinary life in this country. This would be a new play, with an ambition to join the ranks of Godot! It would be about three middle-aged people, two women and a man, talking about everything and everybody. They would also talk about how they wish they could work at their own pace or be full time farmers, if rain would just indulge them. Even when they agree not to complain about the country’s unchanging dry, hot weather, they would still do so. To us in Botswana, hope is affirming that the weather we yearn for may never materialize. As Godot probably confirmed it for the Irish, Rain would confirm it for us: that we too like conversations. Just as it happened in Godot, Rain would proceed by way of indirection. It would reflect a nation capable of using its language to avoid being plain and direct in speech. In soppy theatrical style, this would become the reason why foreigners regard our talking as unique. As a nation of words, the index of our identity should be that we notice things about words. To us an unexciting language should not just be intolerable; it should be a reason for change.
Given this, I have a suggestion for us in Botswana. We could upstage the OED by being contrarian while we also inject more humor into our language. We could do this by introducing the least used word of the year. This would be a word or expression that should have been used in a particular year but was not. The incentive for doing this is that it is both disruptive and novel. Yet, there is also a personal benefit attached to it. First, the choice is limitless and is made by you, alone. Second, the mere fact of having chosen a word that was not used but should have been, may make the person who chose it irresistible. Enviously, that person lives the word that he or she cannot use in daily speech. Admittedly, a serious rivalry about annual words, between a venerated English dictionary and a people whose mother tongue is not even English, is improbable. But, the intention of this exercise is to replace pleasures that are made easy by technology (such as the OED’s annual word choice) with difficult pleasures that encourage personal imagination and composition.
It is funny that we should even say this!
*Radipati is a regular Mmegi contributor