Favorite or Favourite?

I was a teenager living in Lagos, Nigeria when I started writing the stories that have morphed into my first book. English literature was my favourite subject in secondary school, and I was one of the best English language students in my set. I took after my mum in that regard.

Fast forward ten years.

I was now a graduate student living in Atlanta, GA where I had moved after completing my undergraduate degree in Tulsa, OK. Creative writing had not been an active part of my life for many years, unless you count graduate school application essays. As I combed through my old collections of short and long stories, something jumped out immediately.

The subtle but significant differences in the ways that different cultures use words.

Allow me to illustrate.

‘English literature was my favourite subject in secondary school, and I was the best English language student in my set.’

This (above) is what I would have written if I was writing this with the perspective I grew up with, i.e. my Nigerian perspective. But if I had to write this now? This is what automatically comes to mind.

‘English literature was my favorite subject in high school, and I had the highest grades in English in my entire class.’

Depending on your perspective, one of these might make more sense to you than the other. Or maybe you see the exact meaning in both. That would be cool also.

Here is my point: when I finally decided that I wanted to fully develop these Nigerian characters and publish these stories, I had to make a choice. I decided that I wanted them to be based in Nigeria, having many of the experiences I was familiar with from growing up. To make this authentic, I had to make sure that sentences were constructed correctly, and that words were spelled the way we would spell them back home.

Not easy when Microsoft word immediately autocorrects, and (after you insist on your modified spelling), inserts a red squiggly line underneath every time you type colour, favourite, honour, programme, instead of color, favorite, honor, program.

I will also admit that part of my dilemma dilenma is that I want all my stories to have universal appeal.  You will all agree that human experiences are universal. Many of the fictional characters I have loved look and sound nothing like me, live in places I have no personal interest in visiting, and partake in adventures that I could never see myself engaging in. I would love for people from anywhere in the world to be able to enjoy these stories without getting hung up on the vocabulary.

For this reason, unlike many of the books by African authors that I have enjoyed in the past, I have actively stayed away from using common slang or even the famous ‘broken’ English that is the unofficial national language of Nigeria. I will admit that there is also an element of self-preservation in this decision of mine.  1) I was never able to speak broken English fluently, and 2) the slang changes so often that things become irrelevant (or out of fashion) a couple of years after they are introduced. If I were to use these elements in my writing, I was afraid that I would surely expose my unfamiliarity with the lingo and that a few years down the road, a lot of the words would be outdated.

(Another difference: now I would say ‘in a couple years’, but back home, I would have said ‘in a couple of years.’)

So I try to help by providing glossaries to accompany my books. The word traditional comes to mind to help illustrate my point.

The dictionary defines it as ‘long-established’.

Using it here, a traditional wedding would mean one characterized by time-tested and proven customs (or traditions). Think white dress, in a church, bride’s family on one side, groom’s on the other, a unity candle, now you may kiss the bride, etc. Nothing particularly out-of-the-box or unique, nothing distracting from the simplicity of the ceremony.

Not everyone thinks about their wedding as being ‘traditional’.

But when Nigerians speak about their traditional wedding, it is a vibrant, colourful, event that every couple performs. Internationally,  I’ve heard it called ‘the Nigerian wedding’. There is no white dress, usually no church or other religious building. All of the outfits are African and it is not uncommon to see the members of the groom’s family arriving carrying yam tubers, live animals and multiple cases of soft drinks as gifts for the family of the bride. Nigerian rituals unique to the particular culture are performed after which the couple is considered ‘traditionally married’. There is lots of loud music, exuberant dancing and celebrations that last for hours. It is almost the complete opposite of an American traditional wedding in every way. This ceremony can, but usually does not replace a more formal ‘white wedding’ in a church, allowing most Nigerian couples to essentially have ‘two’ weddings.

Okay, that was a long,drawn-out of way of saying that there are significant differences between the way the two different countries (maybe even continents) use words. But I quite enjoy using these descriptions in my books and I hope that the readers enjoy seeing them.

Thank you all for reading, and I look forward to continuing to connect with you all!

 

CD.