By Ezekiel Nabieu
There have been many moves to be more global by many nations and Sierra Leone is no exception. We cannot help but try to keep up with the national Joneses as it were. Our latest attempt to get into the swim is with regard to the switch over from the imperial system of avoirdupois to metric that is being announced by the SLBC. Our greatest handicap is illiteracy. And when it is considered that approximately 70 percent of our populace are illiterate the magnitude of the problem comes to the fore.
From the beginning of Western education in this country the imperial system has been in use. The strip of board or metal is still calibrated on the one side by the imperial system and on the other side by the metric system that is decimal. For many citizens of the past two or three generations the imperial system is all we knew and the other side of the ruler was scarcely countenanced.
Our levelling-up to the rest of the world began in a big way by our delinking from the sterling in 1964 to launch our own Leones and cents that has suffered from an ignominious ranking progressively. The rest is history.
Patterning after our mother country, Britain, Sierra Leone had all along been a left-hand drive country until 1964 when there was an automatic switch over to right-hand traffic. But it was not all that automatic. It was preceded by massive publicity by a task force headed by the late Morkeh Yamson that did a successful job of work. Their task lasted for months during which everybody that was somebody knew that a change of traffic was imminent.
This is not so with the pending switch from imperial to metric. Silence has been the modus operandi of approaching this landmark change that will affect the lives of everyone within our borders. There is no task force or committee set up to sensitise the populace. And talking about sensitisation we should not lose sight of the malpractices involved in the two systems of mensuration.
The litre measurement of fuel has already been rammed down our throats willy-nilly. Some drivers have to step out of their vehicles to ensure proper measurements. It is not unusual for some market women to batter butter cups and for sellers of meat to adjust scales to cheat customers. We should not forget the strong cultural and commercial bond between us and the United Kingdom, created by a common system of weights and measures. The arithmetic paper in my Common Entrance examination set questions of conversion from one system to the other that were considered easy, but today children know only how to shift decimal points.
One wonders when the complete changeover to metric will take place. Will the continued use of the customary units be a criminal offence? The current position is a shambles resulting solely and directly from the imposition of compulsory metrication on a country that has been enjoying perfect harmony between the two systems ever since colonial days. There is going to be a split between a metrically literate elite and a rudderless and bewildered majority.
The clock, the calendar, the compass, music, the whole of nature measures in twos and threes, never in tens. All things change except the love of change. But when it is not necessary to change it is necessary not to change. Why the rush? Where lies the priority? Vive la difference!
SLBC STILL OBDURATE
If there is any institution that there is intransigent that institution is the SLBC whose leaders think of themselves as being infallible. How else can one explain their lack of reaction to any of their failings. Most nauseating is the continued sycophantic use of the full names of President Ernest Bai Koroma in every sentence where he is mentioned in a news item, instead of just stating the President. Is it that somebody will be fired if that repetition is not done? This toadying is becoming unforgivable.
Even at the expense of not announcing the news on time the SLBC would come out with that inane mantra "… At SLBC we seek the news" etc. While priding themselves as the second national broadcaster in Africa they would do well by taking their cue from “infants” like Star Radio that take a break from their programmes to give the news headlines. Fair enough.
Little does the grand old broadcaster know that excellent things are rare and so are people who excel. The performances of some of the SLBC presenters leave much to be desired. Their allergy to change is abominable. If what we hear on the SLBC is not a special type of English that may safely be described as “Hallowellian” my mind needs to be disabused. Even correspondents have caught the contagion. Someone says over and over again during Tea Break: “you can be part of the program by keep sending in your contribution”. Any student who has passed their WASSCE in English would know that the statement quoted above is not correct. Either it is said ….."by sending in" or "….keep sending in”. But to say "by keep sending in" is not grammatically correct. Can we blame the Director-General for not correcting the presenter if he himself does not know that the statement is wrong?
Samuel Johnson wrote “I have laboured to refine our language to grammatical purity, and to clear it from colloquial barbarisms, licentious idioms and irregular combinations. "Johnson was talking about “our” language is not ours. We should not Sierra Leonize the Queen’s English.
English, our official language, is spoken with varying accents, and intonations and pronunciations. It is curious to know that the educational level of most people can easily be determined by the way they pronounce the word COUNTRY. They attempt to Anglicise the word by pronouncing it as it is spelt ….C-O-U-N-T-R-Y. They have the wrong notion that if they pronounce it as KONTRI they would be speaking Krio. This is wrong. The correct pronunciation of the word by an educated person is KONTRI. It is not a krio pronunciation. It is the way the English people pronounce it. Another word disgracefully pronounced by SLBC presenters is CORPS. It is disgusting to hear over and over again PEACE CORPS pronounced as PEACE CUPS instead of PEACE CORE. Pronunciations are not necessarily based on spellings. Take note Mr M.D!
THAT $20,000
It is more blessed to give than to receive according to the Bible. So are people raising righteous umbrage at the President’s generosity? That is because the motor fare from State House to any part of Freetown does not exceed Le 10,000. Now $2,000 is given to each person. See the difference? More anon.
(C) Politico 23/01/14
