Annoying wannabe phrases in Kenya

“It is what it is.’

What is that even? This is often said by some wannabe who wants to sound all cool and philosophical. But everything in the world is what it is. Then you are meeting some wannabe in the CBD. Maybe you had an appointment to go ‘visit’ the IEBC at Anniversary Towers, and tell them, ‘face on face,’ to un-occupy the space.

‘I’ll be there in five minutes,’ says the feller, kumbe that time the twit is taking a corner in Ongata. You end up ‘eating’ that teargas alone. I am glad the wannabe word ‘nayo’ went the way of the nyayo bus, but from my FB friends, I still got a boatload of wannabe phrases that should be gone, already.

‘Hallo, uko wapi?’ Get a GPS gadget if you’re going to ask that. ‘I was just about to call you.’ No, you were not; not in a million years. ‘Hiyo haikuwa yako.’ What do you mean? I worked my ass off for it. It was meant to be mine! ‘Niokote Namanga,’ or whatever other geographical position, after you’ve said something funny, and the other party wishes to express how funny it was.

‘Niokote Webuye,’ they say.

Really? How about we knock you into the middle of next week instead, ‘tukuokote Wednesday’?

Someone steps out into Mombasa road and an Embassava driven by a crazy dereva knocks them into Thy Kingdom Come. Someone, by way of sympathy, says ‘everything happens for a reason.’ Okay, give me the reason why this knock-down happened, wannabe Missis ‘everything happens for a reason.’

Sometimes, silly person, random meaningless things just happen – like a brick falls on your head. Dead.

‘Si you know how things work in Kenya?’ Even if you get that ‘chai’ to do the work you are already supposed to do in that government office, we know how things work – but we don’t like it.

‘No hurry in Africa.’ You are in Mombasa and some grinning dude tells you this, in slow-motion English. How about you throw that punch, just to see the re-action time of mister ‘no hurry in Africa.’

After twenty one calls to a debtor, the bugger finally picks up Call Number 22 to tell you ‘hii mpesa yangu iko na shida.’ But wewe ndio shida! Lipa deni, mwezi imefika kona mbaya, mwizi, err, mbuyu.

‘Mat imeshikwa na karao, dere bado wanaongea, nipe ten minutes.’

Does it get any more the ‘dog ate my homework’ than that?

‘Otherwise?’ ‘Good mornings.’ ‘How are yous?’ Lawyer Jack Muriuki cannot stand these greetings.

‘Me my names are ...’ (I once knew a guy called Phillip Rogers King Solomon Odhiambo Ahonobadha).

‘Kama mbaya mbaya ...’

‘If at all.’ ‘I’m almost ...’ You are almost what, you nincompoop? ‘In conclusion,’ says some windbag after a long boring speech, then proceeds to keep saying ‘and finally,’ ‘my last point,’ until one just wants to get up and strangle them with the microphone cord. And unless you are a diplomat talking to other diplomats, can people stop saying ‘all protocols observed,’ already? Please? It’s very wannabe.

‘I’m in a meeting, lemme call you back in a minute,’ and then one never does. For youth, on Friday, the phrase ‘form ni gani?’ (For, what’s the plan?) The answer being, of course, ‘form ni A4 size, unataka photo-copy ngapi?’

I, too, much dislike ‘pun not intended’ when one means ‘no offense intended’ or just used randomly when, clearly, there is no pun. A pun, by the by, is the use of humorous words of the same sound to suggest different meanings. For example, if you attended a ‘beauty contest’ full of ong’ong’os and called it a ‘game of thorns.’

Let’s not use words in a loose manner, like when wannabes say ‘Stars will loose that game,’ yet they mean ‘lose.’ Lose the ‘o’, let it loose! I assume we are now on the same page.

‘She assumed me’ is lingual nonsense, and does not mean you were ignored by her.

But it is what it is. Wannabes will just assume this article and happily keep using hackneyed, misplaced cliches. What to do, except ‘accept and move on.’

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