Google, Alabaru, and Other Noteworthy Contemporary Textual Sentries.

By

Obododimma Oha

Alabaru, in its interesting amalgamation of local Yoruba morpheme ( a prefix, precisely) – ala- which could be used in suggesting and naming somebody after the person’s engagement or something associated with the person (as in alabata, dealer in footwear), is a nomenclature given to porters, mainly women who now carry pans on the heads and not operate wheelbarrows. There are also operators of wheelbarrows who convey heavier merchandise or purchases, but the name, alabaru, has been transferred to and reserved for the porters as if they carry wheelbarrows (on their heads and not the pans)! Anyway, an alabaru carries one’s purchases on the head round the market until their employers are done with their shopping. They are also called onyeburu in Igbo, although some of these may be male and do sometimes push carts or wheelbarrows. So, I have borrowed this hybrid expression (English and Yoruba) to examine a related phenomenon, that of giving all our luggage to Google to carry in a world where knowledge production has become a hide-and-seek game!

Let me acknowledge that, in more than one case, Google has been useful to me. One is not entirely a bad user. Google has been carrying the excess luggage for me. Is it the recovery of materials from the Sent Mail folder in Gmail or drafts saved? Is it in serving as a search engine, both in trying to find out where one is in the global trace, or other people? Even before they popularized Google Scholar, making it now look like a privileged high chief, one had been using Google to check academic standing. And one was happy with the way that alabaru carried one’s shopping.

But this assistance remains unforgettable in one’s desire to reward the alabaru with extra tips. One, while carrying out an assessment of publications or for publications, had occasions to consult Google Search when in doubt about some sentences, both in their content and their style. The results were amazing! Na waa for this alabaru. Any where that similar or the same expressions were used, so far as they were online, were pointed too! In that case, this alabaru was also a textual detective. Google showed one that there was truth in the belief that one understood the Internet as the open space that does not allow the louse a place to hide. It investigated and probed and interrogated and it found. In some cases, one searched but found nothing incriminating. But in many cases, one found something. Of course, not many would ask such a friend of the textual investigator out for coffee. It also created moral dilemmas for one, and forced one to decide to either be on the side of idealism or to look into the bag with the eyes of an elder and declare that what was inside was a wild fowl not a domestic one.

The point is that the investigator did it alabaru job, leaving the difficult decision to the human mind. To solve the problem for you, one chose to know the truth but it first of all made one bitter.

What if it found out multiple and networked thievery. How did one treat that? Frankly, this occasion arose sometimes. In one instance, the textual thief stole from a source that stole from a source from which about seven thieves collaborating on a short paper in Pakistan also stole! It was complex thievery. Gradually, the theft of some lines are becoming normal with the Internet. Does that make textual stealing proper? It does not! Well, the thief at the beginning of the search is the one to be punished, the one to suffer for other thieves. There is something funny about crime: the devil persuades one to commit a crime and then hires somebody who hires a thorough alabaru investigator to catch the thief. In fact, the devil tells the hirelings what to do and where to wait to catch the thieves easily.

You can see that my alabaru deserves the extra tip. It has been doing its careful job, even before the produced other textual thief catchers, such as Viper, Turnitin, etc. A faithful alabaru following one round from shop to shop, from one bend-down tomato seller to the next.

Some othertextual sentries standing and watching your sopping quietly are the following plagiarism checkers you could pick from your App Store and install on your phone or tablet (or computer generally):

1. Plagiarism checker by plagiarism.net
2. Plagiarism checker by prepostseo.com
3. Plagiarism checker by C.A. Apps
4. Skandy plagiarism checker by Skandy Co.
5. Copyleaks plagiarism checker by Plagly.com
6. Plagiarism Detection by ginster GmbH
7. My Turnit plagiarism Checker by MyTurnit team
8. Website plagiarism checker by dingdond an
9. Duplicate content plagiarism detection by Macsim Gusep.

But do not let the sentry with the pan on her head, watching, to wait for too long! Na market you dey and na business!

Also, don’t leave all your shit to this no-shit fella. So, there is no need anymore for physical books? So, you can touch any paper or pen any longer? So, every time and everything is subject to browsing? Mind you: I have a no-mess alabaru. I hate crime but I have respect for clever rogues that can try my alertness and check my swagger. Don’t ask my alabaru to carry all your excess luggage just because you are lazy! Don’t try my alabaru to offload on you other watching eyes.

Yes; Google our alabaru. With the alabaru, one’s suffering is lighter. Is it not wise to let an alabaru carry your shopping, your suffering, while you dip your hand into your bag and get the payment for the seller?