Bongo is going through its winter now, but our kids are doing summer camps!
What is MOTER BICYLE? We don’t know for sure but we assume, just like the reader who sent this signpost with us, that some artist was assigned to paint “MOTORCYCLE”. How about SPAR PARTS? This, without doubt, was meant to be SPARE PARTS. Trust signwriters! PHOTO | COURTESY
Have you heard on radio like I have? Of schools or some other entrepreneur calling on the young to come forward and sign up for a “summer” camp, a kind of a programme meant to spice up youngsters’ school holidays.
We’re being told about summer camps, right here in Bongo at this period of the year, when our country is actually going through its coldest part of the year!
However, most of Europe experience summer in June, July and August. Could it be we’re referring to this period as “summer camp” just to echo our former colonisers, whose children are having this kind of thing as we speak? We don’t know.
By the way, let’s see what “summer camp” means as defined by the wordbook in our possession: it’s a camp that provides recreational facilities during the SUMMER holiday period.
Another source defines it thus: Also known as sleepaway camp or residential camp, summer camp is a supervised overnight programme for children conducted during summer vacation from school.
Having thus fussed, let’s move on to share linguistics beauties we picked up over the past week. Here we go…
Page 3 of the tabloid associated with this columnist has a story headlined, ‘Wa Thiong’o’s passing sparks calls to decolonise education’.
Towards the end of his story, the scribbler writes: “Many young and UPCOMING authors in Tanzania say Ngugi’s life and work (sic!) have been a source of inspiration and direction.”
Upcoming authors..? Nope! Do we have to remind colleagues again? Well, let’s do it, for the teacher in us demands that we tell it to them again and again until everybody gets it right.
Now the adjective “upcoming” means something that’s next in line. Like it happens during an event, when the MC announces: “And now, ladies and gentlemen, the upcoming performer on stage is, the one and only…Ali Kiba.”
However, if you’re talking about a young artiste who’s still struggling, but showing signs he’ll become somebody in due course, do describe him as “an up-and-coming artiste”.
And now, let’s take a look at the Saturday, May 31 edition of Bongo’s senior-most broadsheet. The paper is carrying a story on Page 3 entitled, ‘JICA, WB, AfDB hail agriculture projects’.
Hail projects? Maybe, but then, the intro reads: “Tanzania has commended JICA, the World Bank and African Development Bank (AfDB) for providing Sh1trl in soft loans to…various agriculture projects in the country.”
The ‘Collins Dictionary’ defines the verb “hail” thus: to cheer, salute, welcome. Now going by this definition (and the intro paragraph), it’s Tanzania that’s hailing JICA, WB and AfDB (and not vice-versa) for the support they’re providing to boost our agriculture projects. We aver the headline could be rewritten to read, ‘JICA, WB, AfDB hailed for supporting projects’.
On Page 10, a regular contributor has penned an educative article whose headline is ‘How a dance purifies diet in the Savannah.’ One of the captions that colour the article is thus written: “The secretary bird which WORK tirelessly to make the national park safe for everybody.”
We’ll do a rewrite to eradicate the grammatical goofing we’ve highlighted in caps. “The secretary bird which WORKS (not work) tirelessly to make the national park safe for everybody.”
Another caption reads: “The secretary birds are known OF being decorated BY long quill-like feathers.”
Both of the prepositions we’ve highlighted in caps are wrongly used. We’ll get rid of the goofing as follows:
“The secretary birds are known FOR being decorated WITH long quill-like feathers,”
Ah, this treacherous language called English!
