Uncle Patrick

Why do you always speak ‘big grammar’?
I am not really consensus ad idem with those who
opine that my idiolect is advertently obfuscative. No no
no, it’s just that I am in my elements when the colloquy
has to do with the pax nigeriana of our dreams and one
necessarily needs to fulminate against the alcibiadian
modus vivendi of our prebendal political class.
How did you start speaking in this manner?
It all happened when my father brought me a teaser
which stated that good orators had ruled the world
and you must have to be a feisty orator if you must
rule the world. As an impressionable young man, I
alacritously threw myself into the whirligig of improving
my usage of words by amassing new words on a daily
basis.
How do you talk to your wife, children and even
your friends?
I relate with my family and friends very warmly and in
an atmosphere of camaraderie, stripped of my
confutational habiliment and gladiatorial homilies. I am
a very peaceful, calm, level-headed and celestially
attuned soul personality.
Is this the way you proposed to your wife,
speaking high tech grammar?
Of course, the business of the day when I interfaced
with my wife on matters of the heart had to be in plain
Caeser’s language and you can decipher why that had
to be so. The matter in view did not permit itself of
sphinxian conundrum.
It’s a long time ago, so I can’t remember the exact
words I used. We had a relationship for ten years
before we got married. We’re looking at close to 20
years ago.
Did you write exams in school in these big words?
I used such words very-very freely in my exams both at
the secondary school and in my university and little
wonder I had the misfortune of my English results
being seized intermittently in my O’ Levels. WAEC
released my results for the other subjects and withheld
my English result. This happened for about three years.
Twice, I passed the University Matriculation Examination
but I could not proceed to the University because of
my English results that were not released. At the end of
the day, it was released after the third attempt.
How many dictionaries do you read a day and how
often do you read dictionaries?
I have read and still do read a vaudeville of dictionaries
from Websters to Funk and Wagnalls, from Cambridge
to Oxford dictionaries, from Black’s Law Dictionary to
Encarta and from Encyclopedia Britannica to
Foreignisms, etcetera. I developed my corpus of
vocabulary by reading omnivorously. I have also spent
nothing less than an hour daily on my dictionary for
over twenty years. So, whereas the dictionary for most
people is a mere occasional reference point, it is for,
me a vade-mecum. It may also interest you to know
that there is much to learn from our daily newspapers.
Was English your best subject?
My best subject in secondary school was government
and religion and am sure that I was drawn to religion
because, I now know as a student of Rosicrucian
mysticism, that I was a student of divine light in my last
incarnation. As for government, I just fell in love with
the subject due to my early attraction in life to issues of
political-economy.
So what did you score in English language?
English language was of course my hobbyhorse and
passion but like I earlier asseverated, my results were
constantly guillotined to my utter chagrin that I had to
lapse into a jeremiad of lachrymoseim for a period of
aeon. I would need to check the result again to be sure
of my score.
Do you pray the same way you speak?
God understands all languages, my brother and I pray
to God using any word that pops up. May I posit that
the key points in prayers are your sincerity, purity of
heart, walking within the compass and to what extent
are you ready and worthy of receiving the benediction
of the cosmic and the cosmic masters because as we
say in mysticism- “when the students are ready, the
masters would appear.”
Take my words my brother that more than seventy per
cent of humanity don’t know how to pray but that is a
matter for another day.
Do you know that many people don’t take you too
seriously when you talk because they think you
are not communicating
Why will I be perturbed from ensconcing myself in the
palatable arms of Morpheus because people have
deprived themselves of the cultivation of the regime of
the mental magnitude? I read all the farrago of baloneys
and vacuous bunkum from pepper soup objurgators.
The spirit of animadversion remains their fundamental
human right. It also remains an indubitable fact that I
get millions and millions of requests daily from people
all over the world requesting for my verbal mentorship
which positive cosmopolitan reactions have assisted my
equipoise and righteous sense of pachydermatous garb.
I cannot put my nose to the grindstone daily and expect
to be understood by those luxuriating in a modus
vivendi, verging on pepper souping, goat heading,
suyaing, big stouting and isiewulising . Has a
philosophical wag not once pontificated that things of
the spirit are spiritually discerned and that it takes the
deep to call the deep? We will speak more on this
matter of critiques and chichi dodo another day.
Why do you pull your trousers up beyond the
waist?
Hahahaha….That trousers style is called Yohji
Yamamoto. It was my own audacious statement to
remonstrate against the pervasive tendency of Nigerians
especially our youths that took to the practice of
putting on trousers exposing their lower anatomical
contours and I will do it over and over again.
Read the full interview on Punch