10 Words You've Been Misusing All Your Life (Part 2)
1.▫️INVALUABLE
It doesn't mean worthless. ❌
It means highly valuable or priceless. ✅
2.▫️SADIST
It doesn't mean a sad person.❌
It means someone who enjoys causing pain or suffering to others.✅
The opposite is MASOCHIST (someone who derives pleasure from experiencing pain themselves.)
3.▫️WHINE
It doesn't mean to joke at all. ❌
It means to complain in an annoying or childish way. ✅
Say TEASE if you mean “to playfully provoke or make fun of someone.”
4.▫️DUPE
It doesn't mean a fraudster or scammer.❌
It means someone who has been scammed, tricked or deceived.✅
5.▫️SEVERALLY
It doesn't mean several times.❌
It means individually, separately or independently.✅
6.▫️BEMUSED
It doesn't mean amused.❌
It means confused or puzzled.✅
7.▫️FLAUNT
It doesn't mean to disobey a rule.❌
It means to display something proudly or ostentatiously.✅
What you want to say is FLOUT (to deliberately disobey or ignore a rule.)
8.▫️INSTALLMENTALLY
It doesn't mean in installments. It's not a standard English word. ❌
Say “IN INSTALLMENTS” instead.✅
9.▫️STUBBORN
It doesn't mean very playful or energetic.❌
It means unwilling to change your mind or behaviour.✅
If you're describing a noisy, energetic or cheerful person, say BOISTEROUS.
10.▫️PERUSE
It doesn't mean to quickly glance through something.❌
It means to read or examine something carefully.✅
I hope you learnt something.
Stay informed.
And
Stay sharp! 🪒
Shouldn't the companies behind the original products be putting more pressure on Nafdac also to intensify the fight against counterfeit goods in the market? These fake products are not only damaging their sales but also tarnishing their brand reputation.
This life is interesting.
In the 2003/2004 UEFA Champions League season, I watched Monaco and Deportivo La Coruna play a very entertaining and high-scoring match that ended 8–3 to Monaco. That game could easily have ended 15–11. It was simply a game of attacks.
Monaco and Deportivo both qualified from their group, and after that match, I kept my eyes on both teams.
Then Deportivo performed that miracle comeback against AC Milan. They had lost the first leg 4–1, only to come back home and scatter Milan 4–0.
Monaco also shocked Real Madrid.
Madrid had won the first leg 4–2 and even scored first in the second leg. At that point, they were 5–2 up on aggregate and looked certain to qualify. Somehow, Monaco came back to win 3–1 and knocked them out.
At that point, I was expecting a Deportivo vs Monaco final.
Especially after my own Man United had been knocked out by a certain Porto, courtesy of a very annoying last-minute goal.
Then Porto met Deportivo in the semifinal.
To my surprise, Porto beat them. Even more surprisingly, Deportivo did not score a single goal against Porto over the two legs.
I didn't watch the final. I later heard that Porto had beaten that free-scoring Monaco team 3–0.
I couldn't believe it.
A few months later, I heard that the coach who took Porto to those shocking victories had been signed by Chelsea. Then he came to England and called himself “a Special One.”
I laughed.
Who does this man think he is? 😂
I expected him to, at best, be average.
Today, I am a big fan of that Special One.
I remember how long I kept thinking about those games. How did he beat a Deportivo team that had just scattered AC Milan 4–0 and not allow them to score even one goal in 180 minutes?
How did he stop Monaco from scoring?
The same Monaco that put 8 past Deportivo, 3 past Real Madrid and 5 past Chelsea over two legs couldn't score one goal against Porto in the final.
It took me a while to stop thinking about those questions.
Many years later, I understood.
To do special things, you have to think you are special.
I know for a fact that what we consume is a major cause of the spike in cancer cases. Almost every thing produced has a counterfeit in this country.
Toothpaste, raw foodstuffs, fruits, drinks, beverages, everything man. I wonder what NAFDAC is doing.
It is high time the Federal Government declared a state of emergency on fake and substandard products in Nigeria. A group of greedy, organised criminals cannot keep poisoning this country while they smile to the bank. What is happening in our markets is not petty trading. It is organised economic and public-health sabotage. It should be treated with the seriousness we reserve for terrorism, because the outcome is the same: Nigerians are being killed slowly, quietly, and profitably.
NAFDAC has said cosmetics, food and beverages now account for over 50% of the counterfeit products it seizes. Pharmaceuticals remain a major share. That means the things we put on our skin, put in our children’s mouths, and swallow when we are sick are the most faked categories.
In February 2025, coordinated raids on the big open drug markets in Idumota, Onitsha and Aba sealed more than 11,000 shops and evacuated 138 truckloads of suspected fake, expired, banned and unregistered medicines valued at over ₦1 trillion. Markets that supply a huge share of medicines used across Nigeria.
In February 2026, NAFDAC uncovered what it called a “death warehouse” at Lagos Trade Fair: over 10 million doses of fake cerebral malaria injections, antibiotics and banned Analgin, worth about ₦3 billion, products officials said could have killed three million Nigerians if they reached the streets. Days later, another ₦3 billion haul of banned and toxic cosmetics came from the same complex.
Customs has been intercepting containers of expired drugs and products carrying fake NAFDAC labels; one Apapa seizure alone was valued at ₦53.4 billion. Fake malaria drugs worth ₦1.2 billion have been found declared as “spare parts.” Counterfeiters now use online ordering and groupage cargo to stay one step ahead.
Official estimates put substandard and falsified medicines at around 13–17%. Pharmacists and some market studies put the figure far higher in open markets; 30% and above, and in some assessments over 50%. Even bottled water is being refilled and resealed. Imported auto spare parts fail SON standards at rates reported as high as 95%.
People die from malaria that “treatment” never treated, from antibiotics that never fought infection, from cosmetics loaded with mercury and steroids, from electrical and auto parts that fail when lives depend on them.
Confidence in every product collapses. When citizens cannot trust medicine, food or water, the social contract itself is damaged. NAFDAC has already described the trend as a threat to public health and national security. That language is not accidental. Seizures without enough prosecutions and convictions only recycle the problem.
Criminals calculate that the profit is worth the risk.
A state of emergency here does not mean empty speeches. Treating large-scale manufacture, importation and distribution of life-threatening fakes as organised crime against the civilian population with the intelligence, inter-agency and prosecutorial weight that implies.
Properly funding and coordinating NAFDAC, SON, Customs, FCCPC and the police so raids are followed by convictions, not just bonfires. Closing or strictly converting the worst open drug markets into coordinated, traceable wholesale systems.
Public naming of syndicates and the ports, warehouses and markets that keep feeding them.
We cannot continue like this. A nation that cannot protect what its people eat, drink and use for treatment is not merely facing a regulatory failure. It is facing a slow-motion assault on its own population. The Federal Government should treat it as such.
Pep's speech after Kyle Walker left for AC Milan in the middle of a difficult period.
He spoke about how sad it was to see his captain behave that way, especially in a time of adversity.
He said he hated how some of the staff reacted after defeats (eating and laughing) while he couldn't sleep because of the losses.
So many lessons in that. I miss him terribly.
One of my most expensive habits early on was staying quiet.
I would sit in rooms full of opportunity and say nothing. Not because I had nothing to offer, but because I was afraid of looking foolish.
I told myself I was being humble. I was only being timid.
And timidity carries a price nobody warns you about.
Opportunities do not announce that they passed you by. They go to the person who spoke, who asked, who raised a hand while you rehearsed the perfect sentence in your head.
Closed mouths do not get fed, and quiet brilliance often goes unseen.
Do not gree for timidity.
Ask the question. Make the introduction. Say you are interested before someone bolder does.
The world seldom rewards the most talented person in the room. It rewards the one brave enough to be seen.
When Pep signed for Bayern, Bayern already had an absurd midfield: Schweinsteiger, Kroos, Javi Martínez, Muller, and they had also just signed Mario Gotze.
This was a team that had just won the treble. They had arguably the best squad in Europe, so Pep wasn’t coming into Bayern looking to rebuild the team. He had everything he needed.
But when Bayern asked him which player he wanted to sign, Pep gave them just one name: Thiago Alcantara.
Not a big-name attacker. Not a player Bayern desperately needed.
Thiago.
In fact, Pep was so convinced about him that his message to Bayern was basically ���Thiago or nothing.”
He’s top 5 most technically gifted player ever.
@Whyalways_rex Madrid fans are just spoilt. They always value other clubs players more than theirs. If tchou was in another club, they would be egging the club to sign him.
Here is a truth nobody tells you early enough.
The real reason to chase more money is not the cars or the clothes.
It is time.
Money, spent wisely, buys back your hours.
That washing machine gives you back a Saturday morning.
The dishwasher hands you an extra hour with your kids.
A good fridge lets you cook once on Saturday and eat well all week, instead of standing over a pot every single night.
Hiring help for the tasks that drain you is not laziness. It is buying back your one life, piece by piece.
So do not just work to afford things.
Work to afford time.
Time to sleep. Time to rest. Time to be happy. That was always the point.