Many languages are spoken in Liberia – Vai, Bassa, Kru and many more – the languages of tribes who inhabit the West  coast of Africa. The official language, however, is English – American English as brought in by the so-called Americo-Liberians who became the ruling strata.They were black Americans liberated from slavery after the US civil war. Some, however,  had liberated themselves earlier by fleeing into Canada. In time Liberian English developed styles and pronunciations that differed from the original.

When I arrived in Liberia, hoping to marry Merran, she gave me a first language lesson:

“You have to learn the difference between beshi and bishi. The first means bedsheet and the second big ship. Final consonants are dropped. One has to guess from the context.”

But even words recognised often assume different meanings in Liberian usage.  Say you ask a Liberian “How do?” meaning “how are you?” He may reply “I’m trying.”  This does not mean he is irritating. It means he is struggling to overcome the numerous obstacles that life puts in the path of good men. He is battling on.

Some of those who make his life so hard will be identified as rogues or even as thiefmen.

I go-come means he will only be away for a moment. Manpassman is a little rarer. It is man surpassing other men – probably by being well-versed in witchcraft spells.

   “I come eat small-small” means I’ll just have a snack.

    An “outside wife” is a mistress and most “big men” have one or more.  It is a status symbol.

If the outside wife gives birth to a child, the inside wife is expected to accept the infant into her household and bring him or her up. Such a child usually had a lower status and was only sent to a local school while the “inside child” was more likely to be sent to school or university in the USA or Britain.

 My wife and I were frequently offered children for informal adoption and came to be considered tightfisted and mean when we would not accept them. Surely we were rich? After all, we owned a car.

Time was another local peculiarity.;There was Monrovia Time and Rubberfield time – the second a corruption of Robertsfield, the airport that served Monrovia. It was indeed sited within rubber plantations and worked to standard West African time, which differed from Monrovia time by an hour.  In jocular usage there was also Liberia Time which meant an hour or two after the appointed time, Maybe even later.

When Merran and I arranged our marriage with Mr Justice Pierre for 3 p.m. that Saturday, we expected the Judge would arrive – if we were lucky – between 5 and 6. He arrived precisely five minutes to three.  I was still in my bath.  But then – Liberia was always unpredictable.

Merran would say, in later years, that she had been  compelled to marry me because “living in sin” (as we had been doing) would have ruined her research situation in a country so full of “God palaver”. Despite this, only death parted us —  sixty years later.

Merran made a habit of attending Pentecostal churches because at their services worshippers would shout loud complaints to God, often in English, denouncing errant partners and even – though more rarely – criticising the activities of their rulers. None would have been so forthright with a human interviewer. It was a valuable situation for a sociologist.