We'll Decide Later

Once I was chatting to my friend in the foyer of our church in London when she brought up her summer plans and her desire to attend the Afro Nation festival (I know, I know). I had never been to Afro Nation but I was familiar enough with the concept of it to hold a conversation. That was until she stopped me saying,  Um, babe, it's actually 'Afro Nation' For you see, I had been referring to it as AFRONTATION.  Like I said, I had never been interested in the festival and had only heard people speak of it in passing. So I thought it was called "Afrontation" and that the auditory effect was just Britons speaking the way Brits speak. Boy, was I wrong! I am a brown-skinned person but on that spot, I blushed deep shades of scarlet, crimson and beet. My embarrassment was to the maximum! Which is weird considering that it was an honest mistake and my friend was utterly unfazed as she smoothly corrected me and moved on. But I kept on getting flashbacks to that moment of co...

Last week I was huddled over my computer at my office desk when a conversation filtered in through the lull of the music playing in my earphones. One of my colleagues, in describing the way his morning went, had said, "I took my bathe," and the office was in a light uproar over the blunder. They clowned him, as friends often do, and had a laugh at his expense. He took it like a champ.  But the incident forced me to think more deeply about why he made the mistake he did, especially knowing I had observed other people make the same mistake at different times. I myself struggled with it for a time. In Nigeria, it is common to hear people say: "I want to baff" "I want to bath" "I took my bathe" I thought it only right to confirm the correct expression and serve it up here.  _____________________________________________________________________________________ A bath is different from a shower. A shower   is an enclosure in your general bathroom area w...