Telling nosey man to mind HIS business? No; tell him to mind HIS OWN business

This is the last edition of 2024 series of our long standing column, “Our Kind of English” (OKE), which is why we need to start by saying thank you to our esteemed readers who’ve spared time to read it. And wish you, dear reader, a happy and prosperous 2025.

From the feedback we’ve been receiving, OKE boasts two main types of readers.

One, those who read it with the aim to learn a thing or two and thereby hone their English language competence.

Two, there’re some who read it simply to have fun, for reading an article by a language critic can be fun, marvelling at the extent to which some journalists make mistakes when everybody out there expects us to be the guiding light when it comes to linguistic competence!

This latter type comprises mainly readers who write to point out gems they note in our English press—not sparing the OKE columnist himself!

A certain Neshika Msangi, for instance, called to crucify the columnist for warning Bongo scribblers not to blindly copy our Kenyan media colleagues and their articulate politicians who are apt to say, “CAB be able.”

The defence that mine was a mere typo (inadvertently keying in B instead of N) fell on her deaf ears! I apologised.

My appeal to media colleagues as we brace for 2025 challenges is: please keep on reading this column so that all of us improve or competence and treat King Charles III’s mother tongue more mercifully while using it inform, educate and entertain—while earning our daily bread therein.

Having thus lectured (bah!), let’s now proceed with our key task of dishing out linguistic gems picked up from recent editions of the Bongo English press. Here we go…

In a travel story appearing on Page 5 of the tabloid associated with this columnist, the scribbler purports to quote the main subject of her story saying, “I am glad that I STEPPED foot in Tanzania…”

Saying “stepped foot” is entertaining redundancy because you can only step using your foot or both of your feet! I suspect the article’s key subject, a lady from a country where English is the first language, told our colleague: “I am glad that I SET foot in Tanzania…”

The scribbler reports further: “She admired the giraffes because they bothered nobody and minded THEIR BUSINESS…despite their huge size advantage…the giraffes didn’t confront or bother other animals.”

Mind their business? The idiomatic expression, which teaches us not to concern ourselves with matters of other people is, “mind your OWN business” (not mind your business). When someone tells you to mind your own business, they are telling you not to meddle with what they are doing. Giraffes are carefree animals that mind their OWN business!

Then, Bongo’s senior-most broadsheet of Saturday, December 7 ran a story on Page 3 with the headline, ‘Negligence source of accident…’ and the scribbler says in her intro: “Sixteen Members of Parliament were injured in an accident yesterday involving A BUS THEY WERE TRAVELLING IN and a truck.”

Saying, “a bus they were travelling in” is being unnecessary wordy; wasteful! Why not, simply, say: “Sixteen MPs were injured in an accident involving THEIR BUS and a truck yesterday.”

Finally, let’s take a look at Bongo’s huge and colourful broadsheet’s Monday, December 16 edition, whose Page 5 has a story entitled, ‘Over 2,000 trees planted at school in Mwanza…’

Reporting in attribution to what a forest officer in Sengerema, the scribbler writes: “He explained that in response to the growing draught and heat CONDITIONS in the district, Tanzania Forest Services has distributed over 37,000 free tree seedlings in the district…”

Qualifying draught and heat with “conditions” is indulging in tautological balderdash because the two are nothing other than conditions! You don’t have to tell that to your readers!

Ah, this treacherous language called English!