OUR KIND OF ENGLISH: Construction of a new tourist gate TOOK a total of Sh350 million!

We have in our possession an overloaded basket of linguistic gems. For that reason, we’ll avoid our usual tutorial blah-blahs and lecturing. Instead, we’ll go straight to performing the key task of dishing out what we gathered over the week, courtesy of Bongo’s English media. So, here we go…

Page 3 of the Wednesday, March 26 edition of the tabloid closely associated with this columnist has a story entitled, ‘Chadema hits back at parties registrar over quorum disputes’. Therein, reporting in regard to what Mr Lambrose Mchome, the Mwanga District chairman of Bongo Republic’s top-most opposition party said, our scribbling colleague, writes: “Mr Mchome’s COMPLAINT ACCUSES the party leadership of violating the constitution by approving appointments without a quorum.”

The word “complaints” (malalamiko in Kiswahili) is absolutely unnecessary in the passage, followed as it is by the key word, “accuses,” (shutumu) which sufficiently conveys the intended message.

Which is to say, our colleague should’ve simply written: “Mr Mchome ACCUSES the party leadership of…”

Alternatively, he could’ve dropped the verb “accuses” and write: “Mr Mchome’s COMPLAINT is that the party leadership IS violating the constitution…”

On the same page, there’s a story whose headline reads, ‘Cancer awareness GAP drives Kigoma women to traditional remedies’.

NGOspeak mandarins have managed to convince us that it’s cute and most apt to use this pretentious word “gap” instead of, say: “shortage of;” “lack of,” or “absence of.” It surprises us that this is allowed by editors, who are expected to insist on the use of direct, simple language that even the minimally educated can comprehend!

Now Para 1 of the story, sourced from Kigoma, reads: “Residents of Mgambo Village…have identified a lack of awareness ABOUT breast cancer …as the primary reason many turn to traditional medicine…”

Hello! We don’t say awareness about; we say awareness OF…

We move on and take a look at Bongo’s huge and colourful broadsheet, whose Page 1 has a story with the headline, ‘Build communication towers in Mkomazi park’.

Reporting on what a Government honcho said on the need to improve communication that’s needed to boost the fortunes of the Mkomazi National Park, the scribbler writes: “He directed the work (sic!), upon hearing of communication challenges when visiting the park to open a new tourist gate that TOOK 350m/-…”

Hello! A new tourist gate that took 300m/-? We can confidently assume that our scribbling colleague meant to write: “...a new tourist gate that COST 350m/-…” Simple, isn’t it?

And then, a seasoned media critic drew our attention to Page 3 of the broadsheet which has a story entitled, ‘Minister speaks against red TAPES to promote investment, support investors, business.’

Hang on! Red tape is an idiomatic expression that refers to, according tour wordbook, excessive bureaucracy or adherence to official rules and formalities. We don’t pluralise the expression, no matter the frequency of the incidence.

It means, the subeditor errs when he writes red “tapes,” instead of, simply, red TAPE.

Finally, we check out what Bongo’s senior-most broadsheet of Saturday, March 29, has to offer. On its page 8, there’s an educative feature story, which is coloured by a photograph whose caption reads: “MEMBER of Kalenga Knowledge Centre, Ms Gerda Kisaki, speaks to pupils on how to PREVENT themselves from Gender Based Violence (GBV)…”

Just a minute, sir! The subeditor, who checks out and improve the quality of captions must have forgotten to put article “a” before the noun “member” It means, the caption should read: “A member of Kalenga Knowledge Centre…”

And then, people don’t prevent themselves from an evil, such as gender-based violence, rather, they PROTECT themselves from an evil! Or, they GUARD themselves AGAINST an evil.

Ah, this treacherous language called English!