By By Ganiu Bamgbose
Some friends and colleagues have sought my opinion on a very good piece by an anonymous writer, which posited that the use of the expressions “all protocols duly observed” and “standing on existing protocols” are wrong. While the author presented some logical arguments for this position, especially within the ambit of grammar, there is a need for clarification at the level of the sociolinguistics of language use. While grammar concerns itself with the rules that guide the use of language, sociolinguistics is interested in the study of language in relation to social factors.
First off, it should be mentioned that the pairs of words “correct/incorrect” and “right/wrong” should be sparingly used in language description. Language is an inherent possession of humans, and inasmuch as it is rule governed, modern linguists have argued that expressions that fulfil communicative purposes should not be described outright as wrong or incorrect. This explains why I would rather opt for alternatives such as standard/nonstandard, formal/informal and appropriate/inappropriate in my lessons and articles. This is not to say that there cannot be wrong or incorrect usages in any language, including English, but such must be hinged on outright improper mastery and application of the rules guiding such a language. It will be incontestable that sentences such as “I greets my mum every morning” and “Did you went to school yesterday?” are incorrect because they clearly violate the rules guiding how words are combined to form sentences.
However, expressions such as “all protocols duly observed” and “standing on existing protocols” do not even have variants in British or American English, so they cannot be said to be incorrect or wrong against any standard.
I should mention, at this point, that English is the most geographically dispersed language in the world. This global spread has resulted in its domestication at the different ports of use, leading to its many variants called Englishes. The social interaction of English and the indigenous languages of the peoples who have adopted English as an official or foreign language has birthed nativised varieties of English which reflect the sociocultural realities of the users. Among the Yoruba people of southwestern Nigeria, for instance, it will be culturally inappropriate to refer to one’s mother’s elder sibling as one’s aunt or uncle. We, therefore, opt for contextually appropriate noun phrases such as “big mummy” and “big daddy”. To describe these noun phrases as being incorrect because they would not be understood by non-Nigerians will be to deny Nigerians their gain of adopting English in the first place. Why adopt English if it will not help convey our world view?
The anonymous author also raised concern about the intelligibility of such expressions, especially on international platforms. If protocol means the system of rules and acceptable behaviour used at official ceremonies and occasions, I want to guess that whoever knows the meaning of the word and has got average competence in English should be able to decipher that “all protocols duly observed” or “I stand on existing protocols” suggests an appeal to boycott protocol. A more significant issue of grammatical incorrectness in the expression may be that the noun “protocol” does not attract “s” when it means a system of rules about the correct way to act in formal situations. So, while as an English grammarian, I can propose that the expression should be “all protocol (not protocols) duly observed”, I may be trespassing to describe what might have or will soon find its way into the dictionary of Nigerian English as an idiom, to be wrong. Although the author attempted some lexical explanations for why the expression is incorrect, such as positing that “standing on” is a misuse of the verb since nobody stands on protocol, it must, however, be mentioned that idioms are fixed expressions whose meanings are not determined by what each word means in isolation. If this expression is considered an idiom in Nigerian English, therefore, it is not wrong to metaphorically stand on protocol.
Another position in the piece is that the expression is “not recognised in any formal English register and it’s a localised cliché, not international or standard usage”. Collins Dictionary describes a cliché as an idea or phrase which has been used so much that it is no longer interesting or effective or no longer has much meaning. If this definition is anything to go by, then the expressions in question are not clichés, as they are almost always appropriate for their purpose in the known context of use. This is, of course, not to say that one should not be familiar with many other ways of saying the same thing as the piece exposed its readers to, but to say that the expressions remain contextually relevant, especially within Nigeria.
As a way of concluding this piece, I must clarify my intention, especially to those who may find my explanation here contradictory to what I do daily in my “English for Today” virtual class. While I agree with the author that there can be incorrect usages in English, the choice of “incorrect” and “wrong” are not appropriate for nationally understood idioms of Nigerian English, such as the ones examined here and others like “a man of timbre and calibre”.
(c) 2025 Ganiu Bamgbose writes from the Department of English, Lagos State University.
