Letters & Opinion

Of Dis and Dat – Part 18

Image of Nahdjla Bailey
By Nahdjla Bailey

SO, I ended my piece on grammar last week like this: Next time, we’ll revisit the infamous “Over my dead body!” phrase to see why perhaps it flopped big time just over two years ago! Well, “Next time” has become this time, like now, so here goes:

If you say something will happen ‘over your dead body’, you mean that you will do everything you can to prevent it: so, really, you’re saying, something can happen only if you are not alive to prevent it. Put another way, this phrase is a verbal objection to a proposed action, claiming that the speaker/author is willing to fight with every ounce of their life to prevent the action. Therefore, bear with me, all you double negative speakers/authors. If you do, you just might get my drift. Or, then again, probably not, for you may already be past redemption. But do hang in there anyway.

Here are some of those double negative examples, which we hear constantly in these parts: I’m not going nowhere with that man again. I’ll go to the show, unless it is not raining. I’ll go to the show, not unless it is raining. Unless it’s raining, I won’t go to the party. (In each case you wish to express your intention to go out, only if it isn’t raining, i.e. only if the weather is fine. But in each case you are in fact saying that only if it is raining, will you go out). That’s right. That is what you are saying – the total opposite of what you are feeling, of what your intentions are. Again, check these out. Sound familiar? He didn’t do nothing, I tell you, and yet the teacher punished him. I did not say nothing about that, and she didn’t say nothing about it neither (that one’s more like double negative squared or rather, cubed!). And sure, French and so French Creole have no doubt directly influenced this incorrect English feature of Looshan English. (However, en passant, I must point out that the ubiquitous “th” as “f” and “th” as “d” cannot be laid at their doorstep, as some are quick to do). No way!

But to return to “Over my dead body” and to put it in context at this time, this is how it was delivered, by not one but two very clamorous persons, I am reminded. Wait for it. It’s coming… hang on a sec, both of those persons belonging to O/opposition forces. Why are we not surprised? But here it is: “Over my dead body, AC will not be Prime Minister of St Lucia!” “Over my dead body, AC can never be PM of St Lucia!” Now, if you’ve been paying attention, you will understand that the correct construction should and would be: Over my dead body, will AC be Prime Minister of Saint Lucia. And for those vociferant naysayers, THAT should have been the construction they used to voice their objection to AC becoming PM of Saint Lucia. Turns out therefore that they were calling for the exact opposite circumstance – and hey presto! – they got it – and how!!!

I’m hoping that this shows all those who don’t care about correct language usage, and are instead all about its abusage – especially, case in point, those two offenders – that you could be making fools of yourselves by delivering exactly the opposite message to that which you wish to passionately convey. What a bummer!

So let’s try the expression this way, and I assure you it means just what you know I want to say and it says just what you know I mean: Over my dead body, will AC not get a second term as Prime Minister of Saint Lucia to bring to fruition the promising and necessary, wide-ranging initiatives and interconnected plans which he is deeply engaged in working on for the future development, progress and success of our St Lucia, and my fellow Saint Lucians would be short-sighted to think otherwise. I trust the foregoing, spelt-out example, just pulled right out of the air, has really capped this grammar lesson for you on the use of the phrase in question.

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