Say bird’s EYE view, not bird’s view; you’re given THE…not A…green light

On Page 3 of the tabloid closely associated with this columnist (Friday, October 14), there’s a story entitled ‘Bird’s view (sic!) over bar exam results across East African States’.

Herein, the scribbler, reporting on the pathetically low percentage of Law graduates who score the grade at the Law School that allows to be advocates, writes this:

“The percentage suggests that only 145 of the 1,474 students who wrote the exam were given “a” green light to continue (sic!) practising law.”

The idiom “green light”, which means permission to start or go on doing something, should be preceded by article “the”—THE (not a) green light.

And by the way, we talk of “bird’s EYE view” (not bird’s view).

On Page 4 there’s another story entitled, ‘Samia promises Sh1.1bn to run college’, whose intro reads:

“President Samia Suluhu Hassan has inaugurated STATE-OF-ART vocational training college in Bukoba District…” Our colleague uses the expression “state-of-art” two times in his story, meaning, he’s certain that’s the way it should be. Wrong! President Samia inaugurated in Bukoba a STATE-OF-THE-ART (not state-of-art) college.

The qualifier “state-of-the-art” refers to something in the category of the most recent stage of technological development or that which uses the latest techniques or equipment. Remember: idioms are fixed; and users aren’t allowed to alter them!

Come Saturday, October 15 and Bongo’s senior-most broadsheet had a story on Page 2 entitled, ‘Shun corruption, nepotism, public leaders reminded,’ For his intro, the scribbler writes:

“Senior LEVEL public service leaders have been reminded to shun AWAY from corruption DEEDS and nepotism…”

There’re two passenger words here, “level” and “deeds”. And, we don’t shun “away” things/people, we just shun them. It meams, our colleague’s sentence could be rewritten thus: “Senior public service leaders have been reminded to SHUN CORRUPTION and nepotism…”

Towards the end of his story, the scribbler reports: “The training attracted A TOTAL OF 34 PUBLIC leaders from 26 PUBLIC institutions in Dar es Salaam Region.”

The qualifier “a total of” is unnecessary—it doesn’t add value to the numerical information being delivered, i.e. 34. The same thing applies to the idea of unnecessarily using the word “public” twice.

On Page 4 of the broadsheet, there’s another story entitled, ‘Contractor ordered to complete Kidatu – Ifakara road project by May’. In this one, our colleague writes:

“Deputy Minister for Works and Transport…has directed the contractor constructing Kidatu – Ifakara road to complete the project by May next year…He MADE the directive when he inspected the construction works at the site recently.”

Hello; a boss doesn’t ‘make’ a directive. Instead, he ISSUES it.

And now, a look at the Saturday, October 15 edition of the huge and colourful broadsheet whose Page 5 has this story: ‘Adolescent girls appeal for removal of discriminatory laws affecting the group’.

Purporting to report on what was uttered by a participant to a forum held on October 11 to mark the International Day of the Girl Child, the scribbler writes: “She said the forum has…increased their understanding of various things that touch on them, including rights and how to prevent and fight against violence ACTS.”

Violence acts? Nope. You simply say fight against VIOLENCE. Or in case you’re keen on using the word “acts”, then you may say “…fight against VIOLENT acts.”

In the fifth leg of the article, the scribbler writes: “Country director of Girl Effect, Khalila Mbowe, said that taxing women and girls pads is DEPRAVING the rights to enjoyment and access to education…”

There’s a serious verb misuse here! Depraving is from “deprave”, which means to make someone immoral or wicked.

I aver our colleague had in mind the verb DEPRIVE, which means “prevent someone from having or using something.”

Which is to say, the sentence should read: “…taxing women’s and girls’ pads is DEPRIVING (not depraving) THIS GROUP the rights to enjoyment and access to education…”

Ah, this treacherous language called English!