Malapropisms on COVID-19

Suspected carriers of COVID-19 are kept in “isolation centres.” (2) Suspected carriers of COVID-19 are in “quarantined centres.” (3) Nigerians are enjoined to maintain “social distance” because of COVID-19. (4) Nigerians are enjoined to maintain “physical distance” because of COVID-19.

The word “isolation” in sentence number one means the state of being in a place or situation that is separate from others. The word “quarantine’’ as used in sentence two means the period of time during which a person that has a disease or that might have a disease is kept away from others to prevent the disease from spreading.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and the various committees on COVID-19 at the national and state levels that use sentence number one are guilty of malapropism. As a matter of fact, sentence number one connotes stigmatisation. Therefore, the users of this sentence should not create bad blood among Nigerians at the end of the dreaded coronavirus pandemic. Henceforth, sentence number two should be used in preference to sentence number one.

What the national and state governments and their functionaries have called “social distance” in connection with the pandemic should be “physical distance”. General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) is the President of Nigeria. This writer is a citizen of the same country. There is “social distance’’ between the two of us because the social status between us differs. There are certain rights the President enjoys because of his political status which I may not enjoy as a citizen.

On the other hand, the word “physical’’ is relating to the body of a person instead of the mind. Two people can have physical contact with each other. They can also maintain physical distance from each other. The phrases “social distance’’ and “physical distance” as used in sentences three and four respectively cannot be used interchangeably as the speech writers of our President used them in his addresses to Nigeria on April 13 and April 27, 2020.

At this juncture, I wish to call on the speech writers of our President to be more painstaking at couching what they write for the President’s addresses. The addresses they compose should always be devoid of grammatical errors. This call becomes necessary because the important speeches our President broadcasts are found in the internet after delivery for the entire world to read.

Dapo Omotoso,  Ado-Ekiti

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