‘I cannot be able’

O This – “I Cannot Be Able” – is grammatical atrocity. We must not hesitate to declare it so, because of the hallowed quarters from which such effluent habitually spews. You must have read in presidents’ speeches, governors’ addresses, professors’ postulations and pastors’ exhortations such expressions. Recently, a Cameroonian professor decried President Paul Biya’s quest to rule in perpetuity, declaring: “He cannot be able to do in seven years what he could not do in thirty years.”

That is where the danger lies! When the rest of us lesser mortals receive such knowledge from unimpeachable eggheads and the like, errors gain traction, prevalence and orthodoxy. Before you know it, someone is telling you, I heard it from the minister or my professor said this, my professor said that or my director told me so. Years back, this columnist as a TV newscaster pointed out an error in a bulletin to the editor. He refused correction because his director would have none of it, even when he was shown the appropriate usage in the newsroom’s huge BBC dictionary. There, errors enjoyed free propagation as house style. You only realise that “teacher has taught you nonsense” when you flunk your proficiency-in-English exam precedent to your intended migration to England or America.

Little wonder, you read expressions such as: we cannot be able; I can be able; he could not be able; he cannot be likable; it cannot be possible; it can be possible. All these are variants of the same comical grammatical outrage – needless TAUTOLOGY or REPETITION. When you can, it means you are able. And when you cannot, it means you are unable. One of the meanings of can is “be able.” It is careless tautology, therefore, to combine can and able or cannot and able in the same expression, as in: “I cannot be able.” The correct expression is: I am unable or I cannot. A similar treatment applies to: he cannot be likable (he will not be likable); it cannot be possible (it is not possible or it is impossible or it cannot be done); it can be possible (it is possible or it can be done).

And now this: Another illustrative example is the case of the boy just arrested. The combination of the adjective illustrative and the noun example is tautological and meaningless. “To describe something as illustrative is to say that it serves as an example. . . .To say illustrative example, therefore, is like using example to qualify itself,” which is “bombastic nonsense,” apart from being tautological. Let us simply re-write thus: Another example is the case of the boy just arrested. Clean, lucid and elegant! Why are some afraid of simplicity, even when simplicity is so magnificent?

Many seemingly innocuous repetitions elicit derision, for arrant carelessness, lexical complacency or syntactic indiscipline, ignorance or sheer incorrigibility. Example: The monitoring and evaluation assistant has returned back. “The adverb back is not required because it is a repetition of an idea also embedded in the word returned” (“Pop” Errors in English: Writers Beware). Academics, native speakers of English, journalists, broadcasters commit the blunder recklessly, and your boss has frequently asked you to revert back. So, the epidemic is real. Next time, just revert: DO NOT revert back. Meanwhile, we correct the specimen error: The monitoring and evaluation assistant has returned.

You are likely to laugh reading this: The reason for this is because of what some analysts identified as . . .  The phrase “because of” is needless repetition, as “The reason for” something is like the cause, motive, need, justification, grounds or excuse for that thing (Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary). You are not likely going to write “the cause of something is because of.” Appropriately, express the idea as follows: The reason for this is what some analysts identified as …; The cause of this is what some analysts identified as …;  This is because of what some analysts identified as ….

Tautological gaffes can get considerably weird and befuddling, especially in long sentences like: These states pool their sovereignty in order to gain such strength and world influence none of them could have as individual states and also to create an economic unit that is more competitive against other economic forces acting in the world economic system. Remove the avoidable repetitions without vitiating the message, thus: These states pool their sovereignty in order to gain such strength and world influence none of them could have as individuals and to create a unit that is more competitive against other forces in the global economic system.

It gets more egregious in sentences like: There is a shortage at the pumps because petrol is imported because the local refineries don’t work because the funds awarded to fix them are looted by the contractors, who themselves only get the contracts because they have the right political connections (New African, December 2009: 30). Creative liberty has certainly been stretched too far, using the conjunction “because” four times. Lest we take such excessive tautology as standard, we re-write thus: There is a shortage at the pumps because petrol is imported since the local refineries don’t work, as the funds awarded to fix them are looted by the contractors, who themselves only get the contracts for their right political connections. What we have done is cure the repetitive lexical hubris by using a variety of synonyms for because.