Where they are wrong

[breakinglight11]

I watched a video today on making a Nigerian-style beef stew. Under it, there were a number of comments like “That’s not Nigerian beef stew! My family makes it like this, my family would never make it like that.” A fairly typical intra-ethnic disagreement, reminding me of the time I mentioned that my Italian family never ate arrancini.

But this in particular made me smile to recall a student I once tutored a couple years ago, who came to the session wearing a beautiful headwrap that looked like a crown. I complimented her on it, and she explained it to me by saying in Nigeria they called them geles. She told me she was wearing the style traditional to Nigeria, but she pointed out other women wearing different styles of geles in the tutoring room.

It was then when the student’s friend swept down upon our table. The friend was like, no no no no, don’t listen to HER, she is MISINFORMING you, ONLY the traditional Nigerian style is called a gele, you would most definitely NOT call other kinds of headwraps geles. She was here to set the record straight.

My student defended her position. “That’s what they call them in the part of Nigeria I’m from!”

Her friend’s prompt response: “Then you are from the part of Nigeria where they are wrong.”

I still tell people this sometimes when I disagree with them. We can all learn something from her confidence. I would love to hear what this woman thought of that beef stew recipe, and if it came from the part of Nigeria where they are wrong.

Comments

[jducoeur]

Interesting. In a way, it's a clothing version of the linguistics descriptivist / prescriptivist argument. I wonder if the attitudes correlate -- if some people tend to generally favor looser descriptions, and others prefer to prescribe precise one...