“Severally” doesn’t mean ‘several times.’ (See more…)

In Nigerian English, people use ‘severally’ to mean ‘repeatedly,’ ‘several occasions,’ etc. But this is a deviation from the standard meaning of  ‘severally’ which means ‘individually’ or ‘separately,’ etc.

While “severally” could be understood in the Nigerian context as several times, repeatedly, many times, regularly, etc, the same cannot be said about the meaning of “severally” for native speakers. 

For  native speakers, “severally” could mean distinct, separate, individually, etc.

That means when “severally” is used in a conversation by a Nigerian, the native speaker understands it differently. This creates communication gap because there is no mutual understanding between the Nigerian speaker and the native speaker.