National
How Grammar Error Exposed Fake News Of Soyinka’s Death
The fake news of the death of Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka on Monday evening was easily dismissed by discerning minds upon the observed grammatical error in the Twitter post supposedly in the name of the 2021 Nobel prize for literature winner, Abdulrazak Gurnah.
Besides, Prof Soyinka’s son, Ilemakin had also scoffed at the news of his father’s death, telling The Cable that the last time that he checked, that his father was alive despite the news that had been circulating for about a week.
GreenWhiteGreen GWG reports that the news of the death of Soyinka took a new life of its own on Monday evening after a tweet in the handle of the 2021 Nobel Prize for literature winner, Gurnah.
“I got a call from Nigeria. Wole Soyinka died suddenly a few minutes ago. A terrible news,” the post read.
Gurnah who taught literature at the Bayero University, Kano many years ago may have also been an acquittance of the Nigerian Nobel laureate and as such could have given the death of Soyinka credibility.
The news helped to make Wole Soyinka the most searched term on the google search engine on Monday.
However, the tweet in his name was quickly exposed as fake given that it had a major grammar error that would not be expected of a Nobel Prize for literature laureate.
The tweet had said “A News,” an error not expected of a man as Gurnah.
News is an uncountable noun and does not go with the article “A”
The post was not long after deleted.
Nigerian author, Lola Shoneyin was also quick to establish that the tweet was fake after she made contact with Gurnah who confirmed that he was not a Twitter user.
“During my short exchange with Prof Abdulrazak Gurnah a few minutes ago, he stated, I am not a Twitter user. Please take note,” the post reads.
Prof Soyinka was in the United States promoting his new novel, ”Chronicles From the Land of the Happiest People on Earth” at the time that the news took Nigeria by storm on Monday evening.
He had earlier given the opening address at the First J.P. Clark Memorial Symposium.
GreenWhiteGreen GWG reports that Wole Soyinka won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986, the first and only Nigerian to be so honoured with such an award.
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