We have bagful of gems today, which is why we’re skipping our usual tutorial blah-blah so that we move straight to this column’s cardinal duty of dishing out to the esteemed readers what we unearthed over the week. So, here we go…
On Page of Bongo’s huge and colourful broadsheet of Friday, April 24, there’s a story with the headline, ‘92 chairpersons in Bariadi Town threaten to resign.’
In his intro, the scribbler, reporting from Simiyu Region, writes: “ABOUT 92 local government chairpersons in Bariadi Town Council…have threatened to resign following a government directive requiring them to surrender official stamps to ward executive officers.”
Hello! The word which we’ve capitalised is an adverb for approximation. The number you provide should give the impression of a “minus or plus” situation. Now saying “about 92” doesn’t pass muster in this aspect because the number looks so exact. We’d rather our colleague said, “about 90…” It would okay too if he said “around 90,” because upon close scrutiny, the number could be say, 88, 89, 91, 93 or even 94.
Then on Page 5, there’s a story entitled, ‘Njombe women urged to seize opportunity ahead of May Day.’ In her intro, our colleague reports: “Women and small scale entrepreneurs have been STRONGLY encouraged to capitalise on the massive influx of visitors arriving for the 2026 National Labour Day celebrations.”
The adverb “strongly” doesn’t add any value to the verb “encouraged,” so we’d rather it was dropped to save print paper space.
The Tuesday, April 28 edition of the same broadsheet we cite above has a headline on its front page which reads, ‘Drug resistance THREATENNING historic malaria ending progress.’
Woops! What are the two Ns doing after TE? A single N is what’s needed, so that the word is written thus, “THREATENING”.
And now, a look at the Friday, April 24 edition of the tabloid closely associated with this columnist, Page 12 of which has an entertainment story entitled, ‘Social media freestyle boom fuels rap comeback.’
In the middle of his story on Mr Wizzy MP, a rapper, the scribbler reports that the young artist believes freestyle is where one truly earns RESPECT. Then, he quotes MP as purportedly saying: “ROYALTY is not earned in the studio alone; it is earned in front of people…”
Royalty? This word, according to our wordbook, refers to members of royal families (monarchs) like those in England under Prince Charles or the ones in Eswatini’s under King Mswati. Royalty also signifies legally agreed payments made to an owner of intellectual property.
However, our scribbling colleague is reporting to us that Wizzy MP is talking about respect (not money) that an artist earns because of his work. Now that is LOYALTY (not royalty).
And finally, something we unearthed on Page 3 of Bongo’s senior-most broadsheet of Saturday, April 25. Herein, there’s a good photo whose caption is written as follows: “Vice President Ambassador Dr Emmanuel Nchimbi unveils A FOUNDATION STONE plaque for the construction of science laboratories and the School of Agriculture of the State University of Zanzibar…”
A foundation stone? Nope! For any singular project located in a singular place, we talk of THE (one and only) FOUNDATION stone. It is particular and specific.
Ah, this treacherous language called English!
Postscript
I owe a word of appreciation to one of the most dedicated readers of this column, Mr Adilai Yusuf. He never tires of messaging or calling to give us a thumbs up or suggest ways of bettering “Our Kind of English”. Or, demanding his money back whenever we fail to deliver—Abdi Sultani
