Likely confusion from using defective nouns that also serve as verbs

To eat humble pie means to make a humble apology and accept humiliation. What better puts this into perspective than the ‘turnaround’ by a section of disgruntled legislators from the Rift Valley led by vocal Senator Kipchumba Murkomen who, lately, have been very daring in defense of their kingpin, Deputy President William Ruto? While on a similar mission, Samuel Cherargei, the other loquacious Senator, appears to have taken a back seat lately.  No holds barred, they had raved, threatened, harangued and only fell short of foaming at the mouth because they believe some malevolent forces are out to scuttle Ruto’s bid for the presidency in 2022.

It is inadvisable for one to bite more than one can chew; a truism that clearly escaped the noisy troupe of legislators from the Rift Valley. But in a moment of lucidity, the cobwebs that obstructed the fore vision and mental faculties of the belligerents cleared, allowing sobriety to return.

Premised on that realisation, a truce was called by the combative MPs who promised to premise their future utterances on development away from politicking. Their joint pledge to work together was delivered to the Press from premises owned by one of their own.

Plural form

Today, the operative words are; ‘premised’, ‘premise’ and ‘premises’.  The word ‘premises’ serves both as a noun and a verb, their meanings clearly distinct. As a noun, and only in the plural form (at times referred to as defective nouns),  ‘premises’ refers to a house or building(s) considered together with the land on which it (they) is (are) erected. Thus, it is not grammatically wrong to say: ‘This (singular) premises (plural) belong to Newton’.

At a cursory glance, this sentence seems to violate rules of grammar when writing; ‘these (plural) premises (plural) belong to Newton’ appears to be the acceptable form, yet that is not necessarily the case if the parcel of land in question is one.

It would be correct if there were several parcels of land, complete with buildings and outbuildings owned by one individual (Newton, for instance) adjacent to each other, or if the information is contained in a report showing what one owns. As a verb, ‘premises’ aptly applies to a third person present participial tense. For example: “Uhuru Kenyatta premises (verb) the success of his big four agenda on putting rampant corruption within government to an end”. Here, ‘premises’ refers to ‘basing on’,  ‘theorising’ or ‘assuming’ that in order for one thing to achieve a certain outcome,  another thing should be handled in a given manner (one depending on the other)

The dictionary definition of ‘premise’ (noun) is; a previous statement or proposition from which another is inferred or follows as a conclusion or an assertion or proposition which forms the basis for a work or theory. Thus, one can say; “The premise (assumption) by Rift Valley MPs that Ruto will get Jubilee’s automatic nomination for the presidency in 2022 for backing Uhuru Kenyatta in 2013 is pedestrian”.

Commonly used

As a defective noun (strictly singular or plural on its own but singular and plural in sentence construction), ‘premises’ falls in the same category with words like; headquarters, trousers, glasses, news, scissors, alms, binoculars and dungarees, among many others  such words that are not commonly used. And while these words are written strictly in the plural form, there are others that remain in the singular form regardless of whether the sentence construction takes on the plural or singular form. These words include; sugar, cattle, sheep, education, oxygen, police, deer, food, flour and you.

Surprisingly, just like a beleaguered ‘televangelist’ once uttered, a few English language users attempt to force the plural form on some of these words. The ‘televangelist’ could afford to look into television cameras and confidently aver that the ‘polices’ were out to besmirch his otherwise good name in regard to an incident that was not endearing. And some of our police officers, senior ones at that, are guilty of the same crime.

Often, particularly in cattle rustling areas, police officers interviewed by journalists make reference to ‘cattles’ that were stolen having been recovered. The same good fellows at times refer to ‘sheep’ as ‘sheeps’ just because the animals in question are more than one.

Not to forget, interested parties in the ongoing fight against cartels (read well-connected, rich and powerful politicians), and their henchmen, keep making reference to ‘sugars’, even as another senior officer claimed that an OCS had “shot to the air to defend himself”.

 Mr Chagema is a correspondent at The [email protected]