Crucial place of prefixes, suffixes in English grammar

There are yardsticks (unwritten) that a majority of people expect anybody with the prefix ‘Dr’, ‘Eng’ or ‘Prof’ before his or her name to meet. Such people are presumed to be highly intelligent. ‘Presumed’, because education, which they have in abundance, is different from intelligence. One is about the acquisition of knowledge while the other is about the application of that knowledge. Thus, it is alarming to hear some of the 'professors' and 'doctors' use non-existent words with all the confidence they can muster during live television debates that have become so commonplace.

It is common to hear some of the analysts and other people use the word ‘anyhowly’. A few days ago, a senior police officer, while explaining the murder of an individual in Mombasa in the wee hours of one morning by unknown people, was heard to say, “the police do not kill people anyhowly”. This word, as with many others commonly used by students of the English language, does not exist. The word ‘unequivocably’, for instance, is being wrongly used by some speakers of the English language instead of the correct word ‘unequivocally’. When asking a visitor to ‘feel at home’, some say ‘you are welcomed’. In this case, it is only proper to say ‘you are welcome’. Using the past participle of ‘welcome’ is grammatically wrong.

Suffixes

The word ‘anyhow’ has the same meaning as ‘anyway’ which is basically to say ‘in any case’. There is no plural form for these words that function both as conjunctive adverbs and independent adverbs. When used as an adverb, the word ‘anyhow’ refers to something done in a disorderly manner. For example, the chairs in the conference room were put there anyhow, there was no order. These words are not affected by adverb suffixes (the addition of letters or words ‘..ly’, ‘..ward’ or, ‘..wise’). Examples; slow(ly) after(wards) other(wise). Suffixes are a group of letters added at the end of a word to make a new word. Suffixes cause spelling changes.

In the course of editing opinions, I often come across the words ‘firstly’ ‘secondly’ and ‘thirdly’. Their use is clearly bad form. Even without the suffix ‘ly’, both words would convey the same meaning as when suffixes have been added. Indeed, there is no sense in writing, ‘firstly, the government has to admit there is a problem before calling for talks’ when the omission of the suffix does not affect the sentence in any way (First of all, the government has to admit there is a problem before calling for talks). If one must give a sequence of events therefore, it is good form to go with ‘first’ ‘second’ and ‘third’. The words ‘initially’, ‘subsequently’ and ‘finally’ can be employed in place of the numbering. However, this last choice of words limits itself to cases where only three examples suffice. If issues to be enumerated go beyond three, sticking to the number form without the suffixes is the way to go.

Prefixes

Prefixes are a group of letters, words or numbers that precede another. Examples; un-employed, un-acceptable. The prefix is ‘un’, meaning ‘not’. Remember, there are prefixes for numbers as in mono (1), ‘tri” (3), ‘hexa’ (6). Examples; Monologue (speech by one person), Tripod (three legged stand for cameras) Hexagon (figure with six sides and angles).

There are cases where words that exist only in the singular form, like mass nouns are erroneously given the plural form, or have suffixes added to them. In the media, once in a while you hear journalists say “ informations reaching us”. Elsewhere, I have heard someone remark, “they don’t have the knowledges required”. The following are some examples of mass nouns, those that have no plural form: Furniture. Information. Knowledge. Education. Luck. Evidence. Homework. Jewellery. Satisfaction. Love. Water. Rice. Wind. Wisdom. Fun.

Other nouns exist in the plural form only; of which some are classified as irregular plurals. Examples of plural nouns include Amends, Headquarters, Fireworks, Funds, Archives, Outskirts, Funds, Goods and looks. One notable thing is that they all end with letter ‘s’. Some singular, uncountable nouns end with ‘s’, and these are - news, draughts and measles.To understand Irregular plurals, the following phrases will help; One man, two men. One tooth, two teeth. One person, two people. Man becomes men (not mans), tooth changes to teeth (not toothes) and person becomes people (not persons).

Mr Chagema is a correspondent at The [email protected]