I first encountered the expression in the early 1990s from my cousins in Kano, who were born and raised there. It isnвЂ™t only English that has no lexical or idiomatic equivalent to the Hausa santi many Nigerian languages also donвЂ™t. Note, though, that santi isnвЂ™t delimited by age nor is hyperactivity its marker. There is no scientific basis for the notion that children become inexorably restless when they eat sweets, but the expression exists to describe that condition. The closest equivalent to вЂњsantiвЂќ that I have found in American English is the expression вЂњsugar high,вЂќ which is said when children become hyperactive as a result of eating sugary things. For instance, if, as a consequence of the satiation people derive from eating good food, they wax lyrical or just become uncharacteristically talkative, they are said to be trapped by or in santi. It also encapsulates a whole gamut of attitudes that gastronomic satiation inspires. вЂњSanti.вЂќ This Hausa word deceptively looks like the lexical equivalent of the English вЂњsatiationвЂќ or, more specifically, gastronomic satiation, that is, the joy and gratification that one derives from food. See below other Nigerian expressions that canвЂ™t be idiomatically translated into English.ДЎ. I said the expression has no English equivalent. I made this point two weeks ago-and in previous columns- in response to requests from some readers of this column that I share with them the English rendition of barka da shan ruwa, the special Hausa greeting to acknowledge the Ramadan fast. There are words and expressions that are so culturally specific that they canвЂ™t be translated into another language. What message does that send to our secondary school students? Well, thatвЂ™s not my preoccupation for now.ДЄs I pointed out two weeks ago, interlingual translation is not always possible in every circumstance. We wail with distress and in national self-pity every year over mass failure in English in school certificate exams, but our presidentвЂ™s official speeches and letters canвЂ™t pass muster with WAEC examiners in English. It would get an вЂњFвЂќ if a WAEC examiner in English were to grade it. I was almost derailed again by the mortifying grammatical howlers in the presidentвЂ™s June 6 press statement that, among other things, announced June 12 as NigeriaвЂ™s new Democracy Day.ДЇrom indiscriminate capitalization, to incompetent use of articles, to inelegant, error-ridden phraseology, to misuse of words such as вЂњdistractвЂќ for вЂњdetract,вЂќ and basic proofreading errors, the letter was disappointingly subpar.

IвЂ™d planned to write this article last week, but the egregiousness of the grammatical transgressions in President Muhammadu BuhariвЂ™s Democracy Day speech was too much to ignore.

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