• It’s common knowledge that Nigerians have taken the English language and moulded it into ways that fit their reality. From this, many Nigerian English words like trafficate, buka, okada, and senior brother have been born. Well, it looks like The Oxford English Dictionary has finally recognized Nigeria’s contribution to English as a global language by including some of our own words in the January 2019 update. 29 words to be exact.

    Here’s a list of those words.

    1) Agric:

    2) Barbing Salon:

    3) Buka:

    4) Bukateria:

    5) Chop:

    6) Chop Chop:

    7) Danfo:

    8) To eat money, in eat:

    9) Ember Months:

    10) To flag off, in flag:

    11) Gist (n/3):

    12) Gist (v/2):

    13) Guber:

    14) Kannywood:

    15) K-Leg:

    16) Mama Put:

    17) Next Tomorrow:

    18) Non-indigene:

    19) Okada:

    20) To put to bed, in put:

    21) Qualitative:

    22) To rub minds together:

    23) Sef:

    24) Send-Forth:

    25) Severally:

    26) Tokunbo:

    27) Zone:

    28) Zoning:

    29) Flag-off:

  • 1. ‘Per-adventure’

    Who even came up with this?

    2. ‘Should in case’

    Can we all agree to stop saying this?

    3. ‘Fleet’

    This isn’t even an actual word.

    4. ‘Please dress’

    What are they dressing?

    5. “Tickle your fancy’

    Na wa!

    6. ‘Oga is not on seat’

    Edakun what does ‘on seat’ mean?

    7. ‘Short knicker’

    Smh!

    8. ‘Cut your hand’

    Ah!

    9. ‘Trafficate’

    It’s not only trafficate.

    10. Calling Coke and Fanta, ‘minerals’.

    Minerals ko, minerals ni.