By Ganiu Bamgbose

While getting entertained with different memes showing swollen faces on Boxing Day, it is pertinent to know that Boxing Day is the weekday after Christmas, observed as a legal holiday in parts of the Commonwealth of Nations and marked by the giving of Christmas boxes to service workers such as postal workers (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Boxing%20Day). So, Boxing Day is not a special day for that sport in which two competitors fight by hitting each other with their hands.

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Oh! I am sorry about jumping straight into that conversation! Compliments of the season! May joy never cease in our lives. I do hope you are mindful of the spelling of “compliments” and “cease”. Even your partner who complements you should not say “complement” or “compliment” of the season. Also, while “cease” means to come or bring to an end, to “seize” is to take something quickly and keep or hold it. So, it is our prayer that God will not cease (not, seize) His blessings over us this season and beyond.

Now, how do you refer to the imaginary old man with long, white hair and a beard and a red coat, who is believed by children to bring them presents at Christmas? Do you write “Santa Clause” or “Santa Claus”? The worst will be to unknowingly or unconsciously spell “Satan Clause”. Anyway, that is Santa Claus!

I will think that José Feliciano may not forgive Nigerians if he knows the number of variants that we have to his popular Christmas song. Many Nigerians have claimed that “Felix sabi dance” and “Felix na dibia” sound more sonorous than saying “Feliz Navidad”. Be in the know, too, that the day before the New Year’s Day is equally spelt with initial capitals and the apostrophe: New Year’s Eve. If you have just learnt this from me, then you owe me a gift on New Year’s Eve. Take note that I did not write “…you are owing me…” That is because “owe” is a stative verb that is not used in the progressive tenses.

And do you bid farewell to “old lang zine” or “Auld Lang Syne”? Although it is traditionally sung to bid farewell to the old year at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Eve, that traditional Scottish song with words by the poet Robert Burns is spelt as Auld Lang Syne. And just before I round off this piece, I hope you have written your “New Year’s resolution”. In British English, this can also be correctly rendered without the apostrophe as “New Year resolution”. Be careful, though, not to capitalise “resolution” in the aforementioned noun phrase.

Finally, I bring my readership season’s greetings from “the Bamgboses” or from “my wife and me”, not “the Bamgbose’s” or “my wife and I”. Note that the apostrophe is not needed when referring to a household as a group. While it is okay to inform us that you were at the Bamgboses’ on Christmas, as another way to say you were in their house, you can only say you were with the Bamgboses, not the Bamgbose’s. This equally applies to names with other sibilant sounds such as Lopez, Thomas and Moses. You were with the Lopezes, the Thomases and the Moseses on Christmas, not the Lopez’s, the Thomas’s and Moses’s. What is more, we say “from my wife and me”, not “from my wife and I” because the objective pronoun “me” follows prepositions like from, in, on, between and suchlike.

Again, Happy Boxing Day!

Dr. Ganiu Bamgbose writes from the Department of English, Lagos State University.

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