By Vera Chinonso Aliyu and Ishola Adeleke, YeyeNews.com, December 6, 2021
An online petition calling for the change of the spelling of ‘lie’ to ‘lai’ is gathering traction. The petition seeks to recognize the embodiment of falsehood and distortion that has become the hallmark of Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture whose first name is ‘Lai’, the petitioners argued.
“Most English words have their origins in earlier languages and their meanings and spellings have evolved over time as circumstances change. And it is not unheard of for events, concepts and processes to be named after individuals whose characters embody the essence of the concepts. This petition therefore follows the historical process of evolution of words. The name ‘Lai’ has come to embody the essence of falsehood which naturally constituted the descriptive meaning of the word ‘lie’. The substitution is already in full use in Nigeria and is spreading fast to other African nations through the instrumentality of the social media. We therefore request your consideration to approve ‘lai’ as an alternate spelling for ‘lie’ in the list of lexicons in your dictionary”, part of the petition to Webster dictionary reads.
An expert in modern languages at the University of Ibadan told YeyeNews reporter that if the move to recognize ‘Lai’ as a word in the English dictionary succeeds, it will effectively immortalize the deeds of Alhaji Lai Mohammed and place him among the pantheon alongside greats like Narcissus and Odyssey. “Even Goebbels in his full glory could not achieve that. The minister should be proud of himself. He was indeed born to Lai”, the professor concluded.
As at press time the petition has already garnered over 85,000 signatories just few hours after it was launched. But the sponsors assured that they expect to get a million signatures in 24hrs. “We are expecting to submit it with one million signatures at the end of 24hrs. It is time we put Nigeria on the map of the world again”, one of the sponsors wrote in his Twitter page.
