The guest stayed SHORTLY, then left in hurry

We move straight to gems, starting with what the Saturday, May 12 edition of Bongo’s senior-most broadsheet has to offer. On Page 2, there’s a story titled, ‘Plan to boost TOURISTS arrival’ and therein, the scribbler says:

“The planned construction of a new five-star hotel, introduction of TOURISTS sports…are some of the measures being taken by authorities here to boost tourism…”

Tourists arrival/sports? We’ve a grammatical issue here! Why, when a noun is transformed to an adjective, we don’t pluralise it; we can only do that to the noun it qualifies. Which means, we may talk of TOURIST arrivals and TOURIST sports. Like we say orange (not oranges) farmers.

In the same edition, a columnist, highlighting the virtues of the subject of his story writes: “Later, the ambitious lady decided to continue with her Masters Degree course…” Nope, it’s not a Masters Degree; it’s a MASTER’S DEGREE, that is, a degree that is bequeathed only to “a master”—the apostrophe before the “s” is mandatory.

And, purporting to quote the subject, the columnist writes: “In between, I had the opportunity to work SHORTLY as a journalist…”

We believe the subject said she didn’t work for long as a journalist. Now that’s not to work shortly; it’s to work for a short period/time. Or, more precisely, it’s to work BRIEFLY. However, you can tell someone, “I will be back shortly”, to mean you’ll be back after a short time/in a moment.

We’re still on Sat, May 12. In the tabloid closely associated with this columnist, there’s a photo whose caption is thus written: “Good Samaritans help push a motorcycle whose engine DIED due to the flood waters in Morogoro Town recently.”

Engine died? Well, in Kiswahili, we say, “Injini imekufa”, but this idiom doesn’t apply that way in English, sorry! In Theresa May’s mother tongue, an engine FAILS. Or, it CONKS OUT. However, if you’re keen on the word “die” then the idiom is “DIE OFF” (not just “die”).

Come May 13 and, the sister weekend tabloid of Bongo’s huge and colourful broadsheet has a photo with the caption: “Boko Somji residents listen to Lands minister William Lukuvi when he visited them to solve (sic) a land conflict which has lasted FOR 40 years…”.

For 40 years? Nope; we say “lasted 40 years”. Like, we’d say, the World War I LASTED 4 years—not for 4 years—having started on 28th July, 1914, ending on 11th November, 1918.

On Page 3 of the same tabloid, there’s this headline, “PCCB prosecutes 3 Shinyanga District STAFF over Sh32m theft”.

We’ve an old goof, but as teachers, we feel obliged to “give it to them, again and again, until they all get it right.” The thing is, staff means all employees of an organisation viewed together as a group. So, you can only have a staff member, not a staff or three staff(s).

Ah, this treacherous language called English!