2

Here in Ghana, I've noticed a growing trend of people using phrases like: "Come, join us celebrate the goodness of God." or "This is to enable GRIDco undertake the stringing of Transmission line conductors across the N4."

I would have thought the correct sentences could be: "Come, join us as we celebrate the goodness of God."

"This is to enable GRIDco to undertake the stringing of Transmission line conductors across the N4."

Is it okay to omit the prepositions or are they necessary? I would just put it down to grammatical mistakes but given the fact that many of the users of phrases like this are considered to have a high standard of English (the second example being from an official Government communication), I'm beginning to wonder whether I'm the one in the wrong.

Improve this question
5
  • 1
    Yes, the original quotes sound awkward.
    – Lawrence
    Commented Jan 11, 2022 at 12:51
  • Infinitive to is frequently omitted in writing, but not in speech. Of course, in speech it's usually reduced to an unstressed schwa, but there's a syllable there.
    – John Lawler
    Commented Jan 11, 2022 at 15:04
  • All those sound like poor translations into English. I'd assume that the speaker's native language doesn't have analogous phrases. Similar to the way that Russians omit articles when speaking English because Russian lacks them.
    – Barmar
    Commented Jan 13, 2022 at 0:24
  • 2
    If it's common in Ghana among educated speakers, I'd call it a regional dialect feature.
    – Barmar
    Commented Jan 13, 2022 at 0:26
  • There seem to be a lot of liberties that are being taken with the English language in Christian services, perhaps a sign of multi-national congregations (very good in itself). 'I thought to bring this word to you' doesn't recognise that this is a negative polarity item ('I didn't think to tell him' is standard English).
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jan 30 at 23:06

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
4

According to Xu (2017), "typical West African English grammatical forms" include the "absence of infinitival to after some verbs." Xu gives the example "He ordered him do it." eWAVE claims this is present in Nigerian English but not Ghanaian English, but presumably this is outdated. This explains the usage of "enable us undertake" in your example. I haven't been able to find anything about the use of "join us celebrate" in place of "join us in celebrating," but presumably it is also a feature characteristic of some such dialects.

Given your statement that these forms are widely used by proficient English speakers, it seems that both of these features are valid in Ghanaian English, though they would be considered incorrect or nonstandard in other dialects.

Improve this answer

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge you have read our privacy policy.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.