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Home Mixed Grill

To Cut a Long Story Short Expression

by admin
February 16, 2020
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The phrase “To cut a long story
short” features frequently in
our day to day conversations
or interactions even in lecture halls
in our ivory towers whether we are
speaking or writing them, forgetting
that the expression has since lost its

flavour. It’s now grouped among hack-
neyed statements or clichés that have

lost their original impact because

they have been overused. Some Eng-
lish pragmatics even takes it to the

extreme, insisting that the expression

‘to cut a long story short’ is un-Eng-
lish and a piece of colloquialism which

should be consigned into history.

What comes to mind when we en-
gage the phrase ‘to cut a long story

short’ is to summarize or give a sum-
mary of the story we are about to tell

and convey to the listener. In other
words we tend not to overlabour the

conversation by ‘cutting a long sto-
ry short’ which as I said has lost its

value and original impact, even if we
situate it in Nigeria as a home grown

expression. There are several ways
we can say it and sound better, away
from the monotony and cliché ‘to cut
a long story short.’ As I often caution

my readers let’s avoid sounding repet-
itive, make use of the large chunk of

synonym-word or phrase that means
the same as another word or phrase
in the same language, quoting the
Oxford dictionary of current English,
always at our disposal. Except we are
mentally lazy to keep recycling words
or phrases that readily comes to our
minds because they are ever present
begging to be employed.

Be creative, discerning and inno-
vative whenever the temptation to

engage out of favour statements that
everyone else choruses appears to get

hold of you think again and do some-
thing different, don’t just jump on

the bandwagon of imitation, because
those who do so lacked the initiative
to stand on their own. Refuse to be a

copy cat, rather raise the bar of excel-
lence while pushing your thoughts or

ideas across to the listening and read-
ing audience.

Rather prefers the expression ‘to
summarize my story or report,’ for
example, and jettison ‘to cut the long
story short.’ Task your brain and find

out other options that would im-
prove your spoken or written English

and stop repeating the same word or
phrase over and over that could bore
your listeners.

We continue today’s English les-
son tilted in favour of pronunciation,

again to remind us that we should pay

equal attention to the written and spo-
ken language. But many of us seem to

be contented with the written English

to the detriment of the spoken Eng-
lish. Being a master in the craft of note

taking neglecting oral English could
be bad enough even suicidal to say

the least. Some of our brightest aca-
demics have lost jobs away from home

because they could not measure up in
the spoken word.
A quick rundown of some English

pronunciations we should take note
of and pronounce them correctly

otherwise when we find ourselves ad-
dressing an audience we begin to do

the wrong thing and those who know
make jest of us or silently cringed
shutting their ears in the process for

fear of being contaminated with rot-
ten pronunciation. See for yourself

and make the best out them: En-
mass, bath/a: /bathe/beithe, plait/

plat, granite, regime, suite, divorce.
Let’s take them one after the other;
‘en-mass- when we mean to ask for a
big or larger participation of people

for a common course towards achiev-
ing certain ends. For instance, we

sometimes speak or write “The vil-
lagers came out en-mass to welcome

the governor of the state.” En-mass is
correctly pronounced ‘on-mass’ with
the letters ‘e’ and ‘n’ sounding and

taking the form of ‘urn’ in verbaliz-
ing it. ‘Bath/a: / bathe is vocalized as

beithe/be:th with little or no differ-
ence as it is written. One can correct-
ly pronounce it in the sentence “She

‘beithe’ the baby with a jelly-like soap
this morning before setting out to her
work place.” ‘Plait’ takes the form of

‘plat’ in pronouncing the word. “Nne-
na ‘plat’ her hair in readiness for the

cultural festival taking place on Sat-
urday at the town square,” is correct.

Never say or voice “Nnena ‘plaite/

plate’ her hair in readiness for the cul-
tural festival taking place at the town

square.”
The words ‘granite,’ ‘regime,’ ‘suite,’

and ‘divorce’ are correctly pro-
nounced ‘greynit’ not ‘greynait’ as

some will voice it. Similarly, the word
‘regime’ sounds like this, ‘ray-gime,’
‘suite’ is simply pronounced ‘sweet/

swi:t,’ ‘divorce’ takes the form of ‘di-
vors’ not ‘daivorce’ as plenty of people

do pronounce it. Learn to speak right

and write right and see yourself tow-
ering above your fears, dispelling the

myth surrounding the written and
spoken word.

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