His wife has extra-marital AFFAIRS with another man; HANGS himself ‘to death’

On Page 3 of the Friday, August 2 edition of the tabloid closely associated with this columnist, there’s a story entitled, ‘Mwanza men kill, hang themselves in alleged love triangle.’ Therein, the scribbler writers in Para 1: “Five people have been reported dead in three separate incidents in Mwanza Region including one involving a father who hanged his three-year-old son after suspecting his wife of having extra-marital AFFAIRS with ANOTHER MAN.”

Hello! If the person you’re sexually fooling around with just one person, we call that having an extra-marital AFFAIR (not affairs), even if you indulge in your illicit engagements numerously. In Para 2, our scribbling colleague writes further in attribution to what the Mwanza RPC told pressman and women in regard to the killing of the innocent child:

“He said after killing the child…he took the child’s body and dumped it into a well located in his rice farm before hanging himself TO DEATH on a tree.” The words that we capitalise are quite unnecessary if you’re writing a news story. Why, if you hang yourself, that’s it! You’re done—you’re as dead as dodo, unless otherwise explained. Media practitioners shouldn’t blindly subscribe to courtroom lingo or legalese in which a judge will say he’s sentencing a guilty person to “hang to death.”

Like, for instance, we don’t expect a Kiswahili scribbler to report that the convict amehukumiwa kunyongwa HADI KUFA. That’s verbosity. Just tell your readers the convict amehukumiwa kunyongwa, period!

We move on Saturday, August 3 and pick up a copy of Bongo’s senior-most broadsheet. In this one, there’s a Page 2 story whose headline reads, ‘DCI troubled by rise of mob justice in Zanzibar.’ Para 1 reads:

“Deputy Director of criminal investigations Zubeir Chembera has noted with great concern the increase in INCIDENCES of mob justices.” Incidences? Nope! We say INCIDENCE of mob justice, even when there’re many cases or incidents that we’re referring to. Our wordbook define “incidence” as a noun that means the occurrence, rate or frequency of a disease, crime or other undesirable thing. Like we say: There’s an upward trend in the INCIDENCE (not incidences) of child abuse! However, it’s okay to talk of INCIDENTS.

In another story on the same page, there’s a story whose headline reads, ‘AKHS Tanzania throws weight behind breastfeeding.’ While our task is to poke holes in the way some of us abuse English, we’ll go against the grain and say kudos to whoever penned this headline. Saying “throws weight behind…” to mean “supports” sounds so nice!

Now in this story, our scribbling colleague writes towards the end: “Dr Noorani advised policy makers to ensure both public and private offices in the country to have THE conducive space for the BREAST mother.”

To have “the conducive” space for the breast mother..? This doesn’t sound right, and we aver the scribbler meant say, “…to have conducive space for the BREASTFEEDING (not breast) mother.

We move on to Page 5 where there’s an assortment of photos whose captions provide us with numerous gems. Like this caption that reads: “Minister of State, Vice President’s Office…Dr Ashatu Kijaji SHAKE hands with the Norwegian Deputy Ambassador to Tanzania, Kjetl Schie when he visited MINSTRY’S OFFICE in Dar es Salaam…”

We’ll do a rewrite for this one thus: “Minister of State, Vice President’s Office…Dr Ashatu Kijaji SHAKES (not shake) hands with the Norwegian Deputy Ambassador to Tanzania, Kjetl Schie when he visited THE ministry’s OFFICES (not office) in Dar es Salaam…”

For yet another photo on this page, the caption scribbler writes: “Workers put final touches in the construction of Kidatu – Ifakara tarmac road which started SINCE January 2018, which includes construction of the 133 METRES Ruaha Bridge…”

The 133 meters Ruaha Bridge? Nope! We need to rewrite thus: “The 133-METRE (not metres) Ruaha Bridge.

And the tarmac road construction started IN (not ‘since’) January2018.

Ah, this treacherous language called English!