{"id":276,"date":"2018-11-07T12:31:42","date_gmt":"2018-11-07T12:31:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flyingcolours.ng\/archives\/?p=276"},"modified":"2018-11-07T12:31:42","modified_gmt":"2018-11-07T12:31:42","slug":"upcoming-and-up-and-coming-synonyms-or-different-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flyingcolours.ng\/archives\/upcoming-and-up-and-coming-synonyms-or-different-words\/","title":{"rendered":"UPCOMING AND UP-AND-COMING: SYNONYMS OR DIFFERENT WORDS?"},"content":{"rendered":"

UPCOMING AND UP-AND-COMING: SYNONYMS OR DIFFERENT WORDS?<\/strong><\/p>\n

by Akeem Lasisi, modified by Flying Colours Crew<\/em><\/p>\n

The two words look and sound alike, so much that they tend to compete for one\u2019s senses in relevant situations. But like many other homonyms (words\u00a0that sound or are spelt the same but have different meanings), they are meant for different contexts. Unfortunately, a lot of people either interchange them at will or they outright make wrong choices where required. Remember, \u2018outright\u2019, not \u2018outrightly\u2019 because there is no English word like that. Just as there is nothing like \u2018fastly\u2019! (Read\u00a0\u2018To Barb\u2019 Or \u2018Cut Your Hair\u2019?)<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Consider these:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Femi Falana was still an \u2026 lawyer when he met his wife.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(a)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 upcoming (b) up-and-coming (c) incoming (d) up but coming<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The school is preparing for the \u2026 Founder\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(a)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 oncoming (b) incoming (c) upcoming (d) up-and-coming<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The major crisis arises when some people want to refer to a young or emerging talent or professional who has the potential to do well. He or she can be a lawyer, plumber, singer, actor or even a footballer.\u00a0 They then describe him or her as an upcoming lawyer, upcoming artiste etc. As far as they are concerned, since the guy is rising and growing, then he is simply coming up. Hence, they call him an upcoming worker or artiste.<\/p>\n

This is wrong because \u2018upcoming\u2019 has an entirely different meaning and can hardly be used to refer to a person. Unfortunately, many users, including journalists, fall into the trap when they have to write or speak about talents who are emerging.<\/p>\n

The adjective, upcoming, does not mean \u2018rising\u2019 or \u2018budding\u2019. It means coming soon or about to happen. Its synonyms include forthcoming, imminent, impending and approaching. This indicates that it is meant to qualify activities or schedules \u2013 not human beings. It goes with events, which can be a party, conference, meeting, competition or religious service:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Juliet doesn\u2019t read much, but she is preparing hard for the upcoming fashion parade.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Lagos State Government has published a list of upcoming events<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In a situation where you want to describe the young man that is doing so well that the sky is his limit, who is showing great potential to soon hit the limelight,\u00a0the word required is up-and-coming. This is also an adjective but it describes young talents, professionals and others who are demonstrating compelling traits pointing to the fact that they are destined for the top. Its synonyms thus include\u00a0rising, promising, soaring, industrious and ambitious.<\/p>\n

The up-and-coming engineer<\/strong> studied at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.<\/p>\n

Ali Baba likes to feature up-and-coming comedians<\/strong> during his shows.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is because up-and-coming so means \u2018likely to become successful or popular soon\/in the future\u2019, it is normally used with people. But, because it can also mean likely to develop, it can go for a place too:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Magodo was still up-and-coming<\/strong> when I bought a plot of land there.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Note that while upcoming is written without a hyphen, up-and-coming carries two. The latter is like many other adjectives formed by combining two or more words: larger-than-life experience, no-more-sorrow crusade, forget-me-not message etc.<\/p>\n

The relationship between upcoming and up-and-coming will also remind experts about other expressions such as incoming, outgoing and ongoing. They are all adjectives and I believe you know their meanings. I think what may be a little intriguing is whether or not each of them requires a hyphen \u2014 between the preposition and the verb that make it up. In other words, in-coming or incoming, out-going or outgoing, on-going or ongoing?<\/p>\n

Although each features a combination of two words to gain its adjectival status, none of them takes a hyphen. Hope you are not contemplating asking me why \u2014 because that is simply a matter of convention. It is the way the language is.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For the avoidance of doubt, note the meanings and usages of the terms:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

incoming:<\/strong> arriving at, coming towards a place or coming to take a job or an office \u2014<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The incoming chairman<\/strong> of the All Progressives Congress will have a lot of battles to fight.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

outgoing: retiring or withdrawing from a place, going away etc.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The outgoing chairman<\/strong> is not happy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The outgoing train<\/strong> is one of those acquired by this government<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Now, you should get these correctly:<\/p>\n

Femi Falana was still an \u2026 lawyer when he met his wife.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(a)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 upcoming (b) up-and-coming (c) incoming (d) up but coming<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The school is preparing for the \u2026 Founder\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

(a)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 oncoming (b) incoming (c) upcoming (d) up-and-coming<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yeah, great!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UPCOMING AND UP-AND-COMING: SYNONYMS OR DIFFERENT WORDS? by Akeem Lasisi, modified by Flying Colours Crew The two words look and sound alike, so much that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,5],"tags":[172,173,85],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flyingcolours.ng\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flyingcolours.ng\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flyingcolours.ng\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flyingcolours.ng\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flyingcolours.ng\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/flyingcolours.ng\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":277,"href":"https:\/\/flyingcolours.ng\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276\/revisions\/277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flyingcolours.ng\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flyingcolours.ng\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flyingcolours.ng\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}