Prices range between 6k to 8k? No! We say between 6k and 8k
The New Year is here with us. Yes, Year 2025; and it’s just three-days old today.
The gems we’ll feature in today’s edition, which is our 2025 opener, will be the ones we picked from newspapers published in the last week of 2024.
It’s our way of saying goodbye to a year that saw this column having effect on a wide section of Bongo’s scribbling community.
Yes, we feel like media men and women in our newsrooms are bent on rendering this column irrelevant!
We consider the development a compliment to the author and those who support him in the materials compilation and processing of ‘Our Kind of English (OKE)’.
Please keep it up, so that we sustain the column, which isn’t just about “policing” users of English, including signwriters; it’s also about eliciting smiles.
Having thus saluted those with a stake in OKE, let’s proceed with what the column is essentially all about, which is sharing gems we picked as 2024 came to a close. Here we go…
The Saturday, December 28, 2024 edition of the huge Nairobi tabloid that commands a sizeable readership in Bongo ran a story on Page 10 entitled, ‘Four are killed in Kisumu road accident.’
The scribbler informs her readers in the intro: “FOUR people perished in an afternoon road accident along the Kisumu-Kericho Highway yesterday.
The accident that occurred in Awasi also left ONE OTHER passenger critically injured.”
She further narrates in Para 5: “The FIVE were travelling in a private Nissan Vehicle …Those who died are the DRIVER, one female and two male passengers…”
When you say, “four people” perished…and “one other” passenger…injured, you send the message that the four who died were all passengers, but that’s not true!
The fact is, of the four occupants of the vehicle who died, one was the DRIVER. Saying “one other” passenger is therefore misleading.
Let’s attempt a redeeming rewrite: “A driver and HIS three passengers perished in an afternoon accident…that left ANOTHER passenger critically injured.”
On the same page, there’s picture story whose headline is written thus: ‘MP arraigned IN COURT over alleged assault of governor’s son’.
Arraigned “in court”? Oh, no! Saying that, as we’ve lamented before in this space, is to entertain tautological nonsense, for the word “arraign” in itself means, “call or bring (someone) before a court to answer a criminal charge”.
And then, Page 5 of Bongo’s huge and colourful broadsheet of Friday 27, December 2024 has a story with this headline, ‘Hundreds escape Mozambique prison amid election protests’, and therein the scribbler writes in Para 3: “Protests erupted on Monday in response to Mozambique’s highest court confirming that the ruling Frelimo party had won October’s presidential ELECTIONS.”
Presidential elections? Nope, Siree! There was just ONE presidential ELECTION in the Mozambique polls that took place in October last year.
In Para 6, the scribbler writes: “Initial results said Daniel Chapo gained a 71per cent share of the vote TO his main rival Venancio Mondlane’s 20 per cent .”
“Gained a 71 per cent share of the vote TO Venancio Mondlane’s 20 per cent?” Nope! We say, “…gained a 71 per cent share of the vote AGAINST his main rival Venancio Mondlane’s 20 per cent”.
Page 16 of Bongo’s senior-most broadsheet of Monday, December 30, is coloured by a huge picture featuring people choosing uniforms for their young ones since schools are set open next week.
The caption scribbler writes the following: “Shoppers select school uniforms at Tandika Market in Temeke, Dar es Salaam yesterday, in preparation for the new term. A shirt costs between Sh6,000 TO Sh8,000, depending on quality.”
Hello! When using the preposition “between” to introduce two prepositional phrases, we use the link “AND,” (not ‘to’). It means, the caption scribbler should have written “…A shirt costs between Sh6,000 AND Sh8,000, depending on quality.”
Ah, this treacherous language called English!
