When and how Nigerians should use ‘stationary’ and ‘stationery’ -By Segun Ige

Words that are seemingly spelling-related are more often than not used interchangeably. These words are, either consciously or unconsciously, ascribed the same semantic characteristic on the basis of some preconceived, but actually misleading, similarity. But surprisingly, the majority of the Nigerian bookshops, which are hardly government-approved ones, use the words, stationary and stationery, with the misconception that they are semantically related (that is, meaning the same). Worse still, one of these words is increasingly becoming pluralised in that it is used as a count noun – instead of a non-count noun. And this word is ‘stationery’! A few of these ‘bookshops’respectively assert in their display sign-boards: Books and Stationary, Books and Stationaries, or Books and Stationeries. For obvious reasons, therefore, we suspect most of these privately-owned bookshops equivocally use stationary and stationery – by substituting the former for the latter and, quite sadly, pluralising each of them – for one reason or another. In linguistic parlance, however, the phenomenon in question is known as Faulty Analogy. Simply put, ‘Faulty Analogy’ is the ascription of one linguistic item (in this case, ‘stationary’) the characteristic (in this sense, meaning) of another (that is, ‘stationery’) on the basis of some perceived similarity (which is spelling). Put another way, if a linguistic item, A, is apparently clearly related, for whatever reason, to a linguistic item, B, we consequently, and certainly erroneously, ascertain that they are the same – and thus be treated the same way. So, for this purpose, these often semantically misappropriated words will be subsequently examined.

Stationary, on the one hand, is an adjective which, according to the “Longman Active Study Dictionary” (5th Edition), means ‘not moving’. It can either be used attributively or predicatively. When used ‘attributively’, it usually describes a noun – which may be ‘non-count’ (uncountable) or otherwise. Attributively, the following sentences exemplify the proximity of the adjective and the nouns:

1. The stationary car has become dent.
2. It took the stationary train hours, before the mechanic arrived.
3. Susan’s stationary bicycle was badly damaged, and she cursed the rioters.

But when used predicatively, there is no closeness whatsoever between the adjective and the nouns. The nouns and the adjective, in this case, may well be separated by the linking or the copular verb (especially such as, “is” “was”, “are” , and “were”). In other words, the nouns are invariably (subjectively) complemented by the adjectives, for example:

1. Snakes are usually always the most stationary of all reptiles.
2. Population was practically stationary, because of the birth-control methods used in the twentieth-century.
3. The police scrutinized the suspects that were stationary.

Stationery, on the other hand, means, again according to the Longman Dictionary (5th Edition), ‘things such as paper or pens that you use for writing’. So, stationery is essentially an ‘uncountable’ noun and therefore cannot be pluralised – by adding the plural marker, (‘-s’), or any of its variants (such as, (‘-ies’)), to the root word, ‘stationery’ thus:

1. John needs stationery for this new term.
2. Every good student should carefully handle his stationery.
3. The down-town bookshop has stationery, and we can go there.
4. There was no stationery in the shelf, but the teacher could use a fairly big pocket-diary.
5. Mary reached for some stationery and sat to write John a letter.
6. Could you please lend Daniel a piece of your stationery?

In conclusion, a great care is needed to avoid the resultant error that occurs as a result of using either of the words under consideration as the other. Specifically, “stationary”, either used attributively or predicatively, still functions as an adjective – and not a singular or plural noun! On the other hand, stationery is an uncountable noun, and should not be pluralised like other countable nouns, such as, “boys”, “ladies”, “mangoes”. Let us quickly add here that this particular noun is morphologically complex, that is, whether it should be pluralised or not. Indeed, language scholars themselves cannot provide any consent concerning such usage. Characteristically, this plural form of the noun has become so pervasive in the Nigerian environment that saying ‘*stationeries’ instead of ‘stationery’ becomes very elegant to a few Nigerians. Even so, some Nigerians continually do remain impervious to corrections. Thus they say “*Buy your stationeries here” instead of simply saying “Buy your stationery here”. Once again, a great conscious care to par the ‘spelling’ and ‘meaning’ of these words will be an outright antidote to this everyday faulty analogy! Happy New Year!