By Ganiu Bamgbose
Life is like English. Or maybe English is like life. Whichever way you see it, the message is that you cannot be so sure with both of them. Knowing full well that “inability” is the lack of ability, one can be tempted to think “invaluable” is the lack of value whereas to be invaluable is to be extremely useful. Is this not exactly how we sometimes expect life to go certain ways and it goes other ways? So every time you remember that “flammable” has the same meaning as “inflammable”, that should remind you that life can sometimes be the opposite of your expectation. So, never say never. Life is not a straight line. This is why an infamous person is not someone who is not famous but someone well known for some bad quality or deed. To everyone who enjoys fame in life today, you can choose to be famous or infamous. Your names are all being recorded for posterity.
Just as life can be the opposite of your expectation sometimes, it can at other times be coloured in deceit or deception. This is why it is often said that you cannot judge a book by its cover; an idiom said to show that you cannot know what something or someone is like by looking only at that person or thing’s appearance. This is the case with English where one may hastily take “goal” as “gaol”. While the former, goal, is pronounced as /ɡəʊl/, the latter, gaol, is pronounced exactly as “jail” and is, in fact, the American word for jail. Do you agree with me now that appearance can be deceitful? As it is in life, so it is in English. Do not judge from the outside; take a step farther to find out. And remember too that the fact that you are focused does not make you a “goal getter” ; you are a “go-getter”. Someone who is very energetic, determined to be successful, and able to deal with new or difficult situations easily is a go-getter. Again, do not always be led by appearance.
Finally, life teaches us that the difference between 6 and 9 can be about your position. Others are not always wrong because you are right. This is also well exemplified in English. While the word “live” can be pronounced as /lɪv/ as you have in a sentence like “they live here.”, it can also be pronounced as /laɪv/ as articulated in the noun phrase “a live match”. A number of people or things in a more or less straight line are said to be in a row, pronounced like grow, and a noisy argument or fight is also spelt as row but pronounced like “cow”.
In summary, life is like English. Do not always be sure. Prepare for deceit/deception. Lastly, understand that others are not necessarily wrong because you are right.
(c) 2025 Ganiu Bamgbose, PhD
