Spot the error: Kola is a talkative

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I may not blame you if you say there is no error in the above statement. I won’t outright accuse you of hurting English. The reason is that it is a common saying that is not supposed to raise eyebrows. The fact, however, is that it harbours a generational error that should be dealt with like any other generational problem.

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In terms of meaning, only too few people will not know what ‘talkative’ indicates. The problem lies in placing it into the correct grammatical class. Specifically, it is an adjective that many wrongly treat as a noun. When someone talks a lot, we say he or she is talkative, not that he/she is a talkative. Because it is an adjective, the article ‘a’ is unwanted in the clause:

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I don’t want Juliet to go with us because she is a talkative. (Wrong)

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I don’t want Juliet to go with us because she is talkative. (Correct)

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Because she is a talkative, all eyes are often on her. (Wrong)

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Because she is talkative, all eyes are often on her. (Correct)

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Talkatively, talkativeness

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Interestingly, ‘talkative’ can echo in other parts of speech. For instance, Merriam-Webster Dictionary acknowledges ‘talkatively’ (an adverb) and ‘talkativeness’ (a noun), but the meaning of the latter is different from that of ‘talkative’. It refers to the quality or habit of talking a great deal:

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We left the programme late because Juliet kept arguing talkatively. (Adverb)

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Her talkativeness made us leave the programme late. (Noun)

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Indeed, every participant concluded she is talkative. (Adjective)

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In other words, she is a talkative. (Wrong)

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Between talkative and destitute, mediocre

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The above reminds me of some other words often misused as nouns. These include destitute and mediocre:

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I saw a destitute in the building. (Wrong)

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I saw a destitute person in the building. (Correct. Here, ‘destitute’ is the adjective qualifying the noun, ‘person’.)

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The government is worried that there are many destitutes under the bridge. (Wrong)

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The government is worried that there are many destitute persons under the bridge. (Correct)

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The so-called engineer is a mediocre. (Wrong)

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The so-called engineer is mediocre. (Correct)

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The mediocre has been sacked. (Wrong)

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The mediocre teacher has been sacked. (Correct)

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The so-called engineer is a mediocrity. (Correct)

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The implication of the above examples is that you cannot normally use the likes of talkative, destitute, and mediocre as plurals because they are not nouns. To use them in this form, we put ‘the’ before them so that they become adjectival nouns:

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The talkative are usually difficult to argue with.

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The destitute have damaged the chairs.

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Things are not going well in the country because the mediocre are in charge in many places.

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