OUR KIND OF ENGLISH: Leaders have stayed ON power for 4 years? No; they’ve stayed IN power…

We boast such a huge collection of linguistic gems in our bag today. For that reason, we’ll skip our usual introductory blah-blah and commit this space to our key duty of dishing out to you what we picked up over the week. So, here we go…

Let’s start by checking out what we obtained in the tabloid closely associated with this columnist whose Friday, March 7 edition has an opinion piece on women entitled, ‘Transforming challenges into purposeful triumphs.’

In Para 3, the author who we’ll quote in part writes: “As per Unesco Report 2022, women literacy rate is 78.7 percent compared to MEN 85.53 percent.”

Some essential wording is missing between the expression “compared to” and the noun MEN as well as between the given figure (85.53) and “percent.” It’s clear the author meant to say, “…women literacy rate is 78.7 percent compared to THAT OF MEN WHICH STANDS AT 85.53 percent”.

The author continues with a new sentence after the word ‘percent.’ She says: “OTHER include gender bias and economic barriers that restrict WOMEN OPPORTUNITIES and hinder their ability to act with purpose.”

We aver our opinion writer meant to say: “OTHERS (not other) include barriers that restrict WOMEN’S (not women) opportunities and hinder their…”

Page3 of Bongo’s huge and colourful broadsheet of Thursday, March 6 has a story with the headline, ‘Pura invites investors to EXPLORE oil block EXPLORATION opportunities in L. Tanganyika’.

Explore…exploration…! Quite monotonous, isn’t it? It’s like using the word “explore” twice in the headline. Here’s our attempt to redeem the headline without disrupting what the subeditor meant to say in his headline: ‘‘Pura invites investors to SEIZE oil block EXPLORATION opportunities in L. Tanganyika.’

In Para 2, the scribbler writes: ‘Petroleum Upstream Regulatory Authority (Pura) Director General Charles Sangweni made the call in Dar es Salaam on Wednesday…stating that the last licensing round for the blocks was ANNOUNCED in 2013 and the authority PREPARES to launch another round this year.”

We’ve here a case of what we call grammatical inconsistency here! We’ll just straighten it out without much ado: “… the last licensing round for the blocks was ANNOUNCED in 2013 and the authority IS PREPARED (not prepares) to launch another round this year”.

And now, some stuff from Bongo’s senior-most broadsheet of Saturday, March 8 whose Page 1 is carrying a story entitled, ‘Majaliwa pushes for TEXTBOOKS availability’. Hello! Haven’t we cautioned our colleagues in this space before? Well, maybe not, but the fact in regard to grammatical rules of English is, when you use an erstwhile noun as an adjective, you don’t pluralise it! Which is to say, ’Majaliwa pushes for TEXTBOOK availability’. That means availability of books.

Reporting in regard to what the Premier said, the scribbler writes in Para 2: “He made the call in Dar es Salaam after LEADING a charity walk and officially LAUNCHED the 50th anniversary of celebrations of Tanzania Institute of Education (TIE).”

This is another case of grammatical inconsistency. We’ll sort that out with a partial rewrite: “…after LEADING a charity walk and officially LAUNCHING (not launched) the 50th anniversary of celebrations of…TIE”.

Page 2 of the broadsheet is carrying a story entitled, ‘Nchimbi to grace TEF extraordinary meeting, election’. Para 2 reads:

Reporting on what current Tanzania Editors Forum Chairman Deodatus Balile said, the scribbler writes: “He said the current leaders have stayed ON power for four years, since May 2021.”

Hang on! Leaders do not stay on power; they stay IN power.

Ah, this treacherous language called English!