Key relational words to watch as you tell your holiday stories

The festive season is here and it’s time for merrymaking—everywhere. For that reason, today’s column will look at words that are sure to feature in the stories of the season that we’ll be telling, stories on incidents, preparations and the good times that Tanzanian and others  across the world are going to enjoy. That is, if they haven’t started enjoying by now. We’ll delve into words or expressions that tend to shoot scribblers in the foot as they tell holiday stories. Here we go… 

We’ve the word Christmas. That’s the name of the occasion on which believers of Christianity celebrate the birth of Jesus, the son of blessed Mary, who is also referred to as Son of God—born some 2000 years ago. Now this word “Christmas” seems to be too long for some scribblers—trust our laziness or pretext of brevity! Some among us will pen it thus: X-mas.”  Wrong! It must be written thus—Xmas. No hyphen between x and m.

As hundreds upon hundreds of Tanzanians head home to reunite with their loved ones, getting a bus ticket for upcountry destinations will certainly be a crisis. At bus stops, bus stations and bus terminals, we’re to witness people waiting to purchase tickets. Some of us have the tendency to call such people “passengers”, even as they wait to buy tickets. Now such persons are not passengers yet—do call them travellers. A passenger is a traveller okay, but he must be someone already on a public or private conveyance other than the driver, the pilot or the crew. In Kiswahili, don’t call someone abiria before he hops on to the bus. Call him msafiri.

During this season, you’re also likely to see some of us in the media industry speaking about or scribbling this—passenger bus! That’s as nonsensical as saying in Kiswahili basi la abiria. Yes, it’s nonsensical, since a bus, by definition, is a big bodied motor vehicle that carries passengers by road. So we need to talk or write about buses/basi, period!  Not “passenger buses” (mabasi ya abiria) that are in high demand because of the upsurge in the number of people wishing to travel to their ancestral villages.

If, being a man, you happen to write a story that has to do with the relatives you meet over there in the village, remember the child of your brother is either a nephew (male) or a niece (female).

We’ve developed the tendency of using the word “uncle” as a two-way relational word. That is, your nephew and niece call you uncle and you call them uncle as well. Wrong!

If, being a woman, you happen to write on an encounter with your brother’s children, these are your nephews and nieces. And you’re their aunt. Don’t fall into the trap of calling these little fellows “aunt” the way virtually everybody else in Bongo is doing!

By the way, distortions are rife in Kiswahili too when it comes to naming relatives. The child of your sister is correct to call you (a man) mjomba. But look at you: you call him/her mjomba too! That’s silly, of course. You’re supposed to call that child mpwa—irrespective of gender.

It’s amusing for those who are familiar with “proper” Kiswahili when they see a mature lady calling a little girl (or, even a little boy) shangazi. Hello, those little ones are mpwa to you—it’s they who should (correctly) call you shangazi.

And finally, we’ve babu and bibi/nyanya. The child of your son or daughter is your mjukuu (grandchild). This word mjukuu is virtually dead today, for you’ll often see a grand old man bending over to little child and call him/her babu. Or, a grand old woman referring to her grandchild as bibi/nyanya yangu, instead of mjukuu wangu.

Ah, Kiswahili can be treacherous too!