Introduction
A friend of mine has described the historic departure of Ghanaian pilgrims from the Tamale International Airport this year as “unprecedented in the ANNALS of aviation HISTORY.” That is factually correct, but grammatically problematic. Yes! Contextually, the construction under review has been attacked by the grammatical virus of TAUTOLOGY. Below is the justification of claim.
Justification
The noun “annals”, among other things, means “historical records.” In almost all dictionaries and user authorities, its synonyms include “history.” It is therefore TAUTOLOGICAL to use the two synonyms in reference to the same thing in the same sentence. A counter-argument could be that “annals” could mean something other than “history” in the construction in question. By the relevance of CONTEXT, this argument collapses at birth. Indeed, the fundamental contextual element in the statement is the “history” which has been made this year in relation to the landing and departure of the Lion Boeing 747 at the newly upgraded International Airport in the Northern Regional Capital.
Correction
There are many ways we can correct the grammatically defective construction. Below are some of them:
* In the annals of aviation.
* In the history of aviation.
Related words
The noun “annals” can be changed to another form of noun as the doer. The result of this change is “ANNALIST”, which simply means “historian” or a person who records historical events. Colleague learners should NOTE the differences between “ANNALIST” and “ANALYST.” While “ANNALIST” is derived from “annals”, “ANALYST” traces its root to “ANALYZE” or “ANALYSE.” This implies that “ANALYST” is a person or device that ANALYSES.
Conclusion
Conclusively, it is instructive to state that although the phrase “in the ANNALS” of HISTORY” is largely used – even in the scholarly community – it remains an eye sore to grammatical decency. It is not the awareness that matters. What matters is calculated awareness reinforced by care in usage.
Allah is the Best Grammarian.
Abubakar Mohammed Marzuq Azindoo
Lecturer, University of Applied Management, Germany – Ghana Campus, McCarthy Hill, Accra.