Ephraim Amu was a selfless cultural leader

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Osei frimpong 12 years ago

A GREAT SON OF AFRICA.

A GREAT SON OF AFRICA.
Aladura 12 years ago

The people of Peki are basically EP people. They are not Roman Catholics and have no Catholic seminary. They have a basic seminary for training pastors for the EP church.

Say we have to "discuss" government policies, not ...
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The people of Peki are basically EP people. They are not Roman Catholics and have no Catholic seminary. They have a basic seminary for training pastors for the EP church.

Say we have to "discuss" government policies, not "discourse"!
Kofi of Africa 12 years ago

Aladura,

Thank you for correcting the factual mistake on the the EP Church. You are right. I am wrong. My apology.

However, you are wrong about the verb 'discuss'. It simply means consideration or examination by argume ...
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Aladura,

Thank you for correcting the factual mistake on the the EP Church. You are right. I am wrong. My apology.

However, you are wrong about the verb 'discuss'. It simply means consideration or examination by argument, comment, talk or writing to explore solutions in debate.

For the purpose of Ghana's/Africa's development and modernisation to which my writings target, I prefer to use the noun/verb 'discourse.' Why?

Because I know, as a Media and Cultural Studies lecturer, that it more accurately refers to the broader social, cultural, and ideological implications of the meanings in my posts - the sense they contribute to Ghana's/Africa's development and modernisation.

Discourse provides the forum for didactic and other reasoning devices and strategies to be deployed - in a dispassionate, give-and-take way - for the fuller implications of a subject to be explored between groups of people. A 'discussion' has a more limited scope.

Of course, there are high-brow theoretical explanations of the distinctions between them. But I choose not to do so because this is the wrong forum.

Regards.
Dr. SAS, Attorney at Law 12 years ago

I was about to join in criticizing you for using "discourse" as a verb when I hesitated to research. The item is properly used as a verb in your context. Thanks for the education.
Moreover, thanks for your very educative and ...
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I was about to join in criticizing you for using "discourse" as a verb when I hesitated to research. The item is properly used as a verb in your context. Thanks for the education.
Moreover, thanks for your very educative and informative article. Don't be bothered by the frozen-headed ones.
Aladura 12 years ago

Kofi, after using "discourse" as a noun THREE times earlier on in this piece, you suddenly verbalize the word in your penultimate paragraph in an instance where "discuss" will be more appropriate. Doesn't it jangle in your ea ...
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Kofi, after using "discourse" as a noun THREE times earlier on in this piece, you suddenly verbalize the word in your penultimate paragraph in an instance where "discuss" will be more appropriate. Doesn't it jangle in your ears? This is a very subtle point that goes beyond the strictures of grammar. You can, in principle, make a verb of many nouns but you're not going to find many masters using discourse as a verb... Many style guides won't accept it.

But you seem to be enamoured of the word "discourse" which is why you use it all of four times in this short piece...

I feel strongly you didn't put in a lot of research into this topic and I find you even more guilty now you're telling us you are Media and Cultural Studies lecturer! You haven't told us anything about Ephraim Amu which anybody sitting on a computer cannot find out one touch from the Internet. What, really, have you added to our knowledge of the great man?

You won't seem to know that a colonial era hymn composed in the 1940s as a parallel to God Save the King couldn't be transferred to a new Ghana that now comprised more than the monarch's subjects.

There is a certain carelessness in the whole work that makes you write Ephraim Amu, on first mention, in lower case and write Avotele instead of Avetile.

If you had carefully read through the piece before sending it for publication, you'd have seen some of these mistakes.

I never said: "I don't fully agree, Sir..."

Thanks and regards too.
Dr. SAS, Attorney at Law 12 years ago

Are you now resorting to a subjective view after losing the grammar drama?
The man's use of "discourse" as a verb is supported by authority and here you are making "jangle in your ear" argument.....
And because you know so ...
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Are you now resorting to a subjective view after losing the grammar drama?
The man's use of "discourse" as a verb is supported by authority and here you are making "jangle in your ear" argument.....
And because you know so much about Dr. Amu, you presume that everybody else knows about him?
I, Samuel Adjei Sarfo, I am a Doctor of Law, but find that I have benefited greatly from the author's well-researched article.
I also hold a Masters degree in English. I am also a certified English Teacher at the advanced level....I find that the author's work can hold its own against any linguistic scrutiny. If you think otherwise, be humbled by the panoply of errors in your own lousy piece!
Aladura 12 years ago

You and your "I am a Doctor of Law", "I hold a Masters degree in English", "I am a certified English Teacher...". I don't know who needs some humility here. Are you saying that your string of degrees make you inerrant in your ...
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You and your "I am a Doctor of Law", "I hold a Masters degree in English", "I am a certified English Teacher...". I don't know who needs some humility here. Are you saying that your string of degrees make you inerrant in your pronouncements or you would rather discuss the issue on its own merits?

You seem to think that if something is correct in grammar then it must be used "by all means"! In that you don't even seem to be true to yourself. Your initial feelings told you that usage was strange. You researched and saw that the word can be used as a verb. Suddenly the usage is no longer strange to you, Sarfo Adjei Samuel? Tell me how many authorities use it in that and how common that is in modern usage?

You talk about my "panoply of errors". What kind of academician are you who thinks a person who criticizes others should not, himself, make mistakes? What will academic discourse be, then?

This is an open forum where we learn and criticise. I saw that Kofi's article is strewn with petty mistakes. I point these out. I feel that with a little more care and some more work, he would have produced something better than this. I hold him to a higher standard which I am sure he will remember when he's writing his next article. You want him to rest on his laurels. You and I differ in more things than these and we shall stay so.
Kojo T 12 years ago

Let us concentrate on the subjet Ephaim Amu the great teacher and his legacy. Away with your booklong. Mr Amu was a humble man who spoke softly.

Let us concentrate on the subjet Ephaim Amu the great teacher and his legacy. Away with your booklong. Mr Amu was a humble man who spoke softly.
Pelicles 12 years ago

The author has written something for us to digest and offer some comments but here we are. We are too known and that is the basis of our retrogression. The Queens language originated from Ghana, trust me.

The author has written something for us to digest and offer some comments but here we are. We are too known and that is the basis of our retrogression. The Queens language originated from Ghana, trust me.
Dziko Kwame 12 years ago

Mr "KOFI"

You wrote "....I think we have had a thoroughly good cultural discourse to chew on today. Do you agree with me?

I will not pat you on the shoulder, so long as you started this news with Dr Amu's names in SMALL ...
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Mr "KOFI"

You wrote "....I think we have had a thoroughly good cultural discourse to chew on today. Do you agree with me?

I will not pat you on the shoulder, so long as you started this news with Dr Amu's names in SMALL LETTERS.

Does that mean something to any other reader?

Cheers

Aladura 12 years ago

He's simply a very careless writer who doesn't even know what he's writing about. I don't think he should be informing people of things he doesn't himself know much about.

But where have you being all this while, Dziko?

He's simply a very careless writer who doesn't even know what he's writing about. I don't think he should be informing people of things he doesn't himself know much about.

But where have you being all this while, Dziko?
Kofi of Africa 12 years ago

Aladura,

You state, 'I don't fully agree, Sir...
He's simply a very careless writer who doesn't even know what he's writing about.'

What don't you agree with? What evidence do you adduce to your statement that I don't ...
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Aladura,

You state, 'I don't fully agree, Sir...
He's simply a very careless writer who doesn't even know what he's writing about.'

What don't you agree with? What evidence do you adduce to your statement that I don't know what I am writing about?
Kofi Gbangbade 12 years ago

The writer Kofi, may be a very careless writer as you seem to have marked his piece but I admire him for accepting his mistakes. As a good writer I would have thought that your duty is to point out and correct his mistakes. N ...
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The writer Kofi, may be a very careless writer as you seem to have marked his piece but I admire him for accepting his mistakes. As a good writer I would have thought that your duty is to point out and correct his mistakes. Nobody knows it all or has the right over knowledge. I agree with you that people should know what they are talking about but it is only the fool who does not correct or accept his/her mistakes. The wise, like the writer, Kofi has accepted his mistakes with humility. At least we have acquired some knowledge from his piece and this must be acknowledged.
Kwame 12 years ago

Where old age is a curse and dynasty sudden death, Africa. If the sons of Mr. Robert Mugabe were to go to a hospital to wait on their wives to deliver their child the BBC would have been the first broadcasting station to deno ...
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Where old age is a curse and dynasty sudden death, Africa. If the sons of Mr. Robert Mugabe were to go to a hospital to wait on their wives to deliver their child the BBC would have been the first broadcasting station to denounce it as being waste of time and resources of Zimbabwe.
The children of Mugabe are not paid because he is the president of Zimbabwe however Price William is paid by the British tax payer's money.
I am not sure how old Queen Elizabeth of Britain and others is, but she has been Queen since 1953 and that is 60 years ago.
At times a person who try to cut the nose of another to spite his face look ugly.
Dr. SAS, Attorney at Law 12 years ago

"He's simply a very careless writer who doesn't even know what he's writing about. I don't think he should be informing people of things he doesn't himself know much about.
But where have you being all this while, Dziko?"

...
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"He's simply a very careless writer who doesn't even know what he's writing about. I don't think he should be informing people of things he doesn't himself know much about.
But where have you being all this while, Dziko?"

The above is your comment about somebody else's best effort?
Before this, you had condemned the man for using "discourse" as a verb and questioned his status as a Lecturer.
Now, despite your latter-day serendipity, you stick to your gun and make pedestrian argument, rationalizing that "discourse" is not regularly verbalized so the author is still wrong anyway, although he is grammatically right. Under the circumstance, I needed to come to his aid by parading my qualifications to show you that I fully qualify to referee in the matter......and to pronounce him to be in the right and you in the wrong.
You are sensible enough to admit your own linguistic fallibility without cutting the author the same slack?
Read over "But where have you BEING all this while..." and accept your own awful sloppiness in disgrace.
I am very happy that we often disagree; with blockheads like you, I would rather forever differ. The only time I will feel insecure is when I ever agree with you....
Hypocrite! you strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. Shame on you for constituting yourself into a destructive critic!
Aladura 12 years ago

Sometimes, you argue and condemn people (not me in this instance) just to prove something about yourself. That is why you bluntly insult others. That is why, at the drop of a hat, you parade your degrees for everybody to see. ...
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Sometimes, you argue and condemn people (not me in this instance) just to prove something about yourself. That is why you bluntly insult others. That is why, at the drop of a hat, you parade your degrees for everybody to see. That is why you insist on calling yourself "Dr" when you don't have a PhD and when you know that the convention is well established that those who have a JD do not call themselves Dr. You've told us everything about yourself. What is there to know again? You hardly know a thing about me. Yes, we ARE different, you and I.
Dr. SAS, Attorney at Law 12 years ago

Now you digress....
Why don't you respond to the issues I raised?
We know your hackneyed story about my title of "doctor"; but you don't dispute that I have a Juris Doctor (Latin for Doctor of law) degree. Your trite argume ...
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Now you digress....
Why don't you respond to the issues I raised?
We know your hackneyed story about my title of "doctor"; but you don't dispute that I have a Juris Doctor (Latin for Doctor of law) degree. Your trite argument is that it is not the convention to use a title which I have rightly earned because the title reads Juris Doctor (Doctor of Law or JD) but not "Doctor of Philosophy" (Ph.D). Please do your research! You don't even care to find out that one does the same credit hours for both types of degrees, or that both are considered equal in American academic settings.
Poor ignorant twerp! It is the same line of illogic that tells you that "discourse' is conventionally used as a noun so, although it could grammatically be used as a verb, it is still wrong to use it as a verb.
I know everything about you....that you are handicapped in matters of logic. People like you go to a wedding and posit that there was no marriage because the couple did not cut a wedding cake!
You write rotten English and gloss over it as Okay while condemning other' writing, and when you are put on the spot, you attack me for calling myself a Doctor of Law although I am a Doctor of Law!
or is it a case that non-achievers like you would rather we did not broach our academic accomplishments?
Aladura 12 years ago

Sarfo, you don't know anything about me because I haven't said it. I know a lot about you because you have said it all yourself - your Efiduase roots, your Cape Coast University days, your teaching Michael Borkor (convenientl ...
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Sarfo, you don't know anything about me because I haven't said it. I know a lot about you because you have said it all yourself - your Efiduase roots, your Cape Coast University days, your teaching Michael Borkor (conveniently forgetting that someone also taught you), your age, your child, your relatively recent move to the US, everything. What kind of a person says all such things on a forum like this?

Let me admit to you that I feel very uncomfortable in this argument with you for the simple reason that I am older than you and should be the one to show you a more mature way of doing things not follow you in your childlike, infantile postures even though you are a man of over 50. I deeply regret that!!! And I apologize to you for that.
Dr. SAS, Attorney at Law 12 years ago

Have you anything to say for/about yourself?
You are running away from espoused logic to talk about my personal history. I put out my personal history because I am very proud of my achievements. You can see more by simply go ...
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Have you anything to say for/about yourself?
You are running away from espoused logic to talk about my personal history. I put out my personal history because I am very proud of my achievements. You can see more by simply googling Samuel Adjei Sarfo. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be known. I want to be positively identified as me, although you have the right to hide in your hole forever.
By the way, why have you abandoned all your arguments to talk about your knowledge of me? Is it a geriatric posturing that you jump from issue to issue? You are losing your focus bro; becoming some dotard!
Right now, I am going to court, but if you return to the issues, I will answer from the courthouse.
Aladura 12 years ago

You may satisfy yourself with having the last word. But if you want to continue, you're certainly free to do so.

You may satisfy yourself with having the last word. But if you want to continue, you're certainly free to do so.

Pelicles 12 years ago

I know the man personally and he is really an "African" who adore and love anything African. Do we have his type in todays Ghana, maybe, but.

May God bless him.

I know the man personally and he is really an "African" who adore and love anything African. Do we have his type in todays Ghana, maybe, but.

May God bless him.
C.Y. ANDY-K 12 years ago

Interesting piece. Just a couple of days ago, I was compelled by Kofi Ameko's ref. to "Denyigba" in his article on Bella Bellow to fish out my copy of Fred Agyemang's superlative biography of Dr Amu - Amu The African: A Study ...
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Interesting piece. Just a couple of days ago, I was compelled by Kofi Ameko's ref. to "Denyigba" in his article on Bella Bellow to fish out my copy of Fred Agyemang's superlative biography of Dr Amu - Amu The African: A Study in Vision and Courage, Asempa Publishers - in order to refresh myself on what Mr Agyemang wrote abt Togo not going ahead to use the national item Dr Amu was asked to compose for them. This article is just a small bit of what there is to say about the man. I believe Kofi Africa has access to the said book, otherwise, where would he have learned about incidences like carrying the organ to go for lessons and who taught him to play it?

Anyway, aside the typos, what I found most interesting about the article is the lack of vision and lack of civilised/modern values that lead to advancement exhibited by today's so-called educated elite, compared to to the elite's of the pre-colonial era. I've been working myself to writing about that for a while now, even though that has formed the theme scattered all over my writings. Let us focus more on that, now that Ken Kurankye, Editor, PG, has come out of prison to pronounce that Ghanaians are not civilised! I knew that since I was a kid! White people used to call us savages, backward people, underdeveloped people and recently developing people. We haven't even reached the middle level proper as civilised people, we at the lower level of middle!

Andy-K
Kameni 12 years ago

Can you enlighten us a little bit about Togo not going ahead to use the national anthem Amu was asked to compose for them? What anthem was that and what were the circumstances of his being asked to do so? Why did Togo not use ...
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Can you enlighten us a little bit about Togo not going ahead to use the national anthem Amu was asked to compose for them? What anthem was that and what were the circumstances of his being asked to do so? Why did Togo not use it? Was it to have been in Ewe or French?

As for Amu carrying the organ on his head and his journey to Frankadua and the walk to Peki and his even walking all the way to Akropong to attend school, these facts, and more, are available on the internet. Perhaps they come from Agyemang's book.

Thanks

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Ephraim Amu was a selfless cultural leader

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