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OUR KIND OF ENGLISH: ‘A’ firstborn to his dad? No sir, he’s THE firstborn…

‘Tourist board comes up with new plan to market Tanzania in China’. This is the headline for a story in a recent edition of a Bongo broadsheet. The intro reads thus:

“Tanzania Tourist Board (TTB) will soon come up with a new strategy aimed at unlocking the country’s tourism potentials in China, a senior official has UNVEILED.”

We’re uncomfortable with the use of the word we’ve capitalised. Our dictionary says “unveil” means: 1. Remove a cover or curtain from a painting, statue, etc. so it can be seen in public for the first time. 2. Show or introduce a new plan, product, etc, to the public for the first time.

Now is UNVEIL really the right verb to describe a mere act of announcing a “plan to come up soon”? In any case, “soon”, as we all know, can take forever. The Board might even be disbanded before it launches the plan!

As mass media communicators, we must strive to ensure the average reader can understand what we’re saying, hence the need for us to write in simple language. One of this columnist’s mentors, Mr Boniface Byarugaba—who stands out among the best subs he has ever worked with—used to preach to us during postmortems at the TSN newsroom: “A news story should be written to suit the understanding of a Standard 5 pupil.” Let’s not write to impress!

So, how about writing, simply: “…a senior official has SAID”, instead of “…has UNVEILED”?

That’s enough lecturing. Let’s move on to share gems picked up over the past week…

On Page 12 of the Fri, Jan 25 edition of the tabloid close to this columnist, there’s a story entitled, ‘Empire actor talks about his life’, and in Para 2, the scribbler records movie star Morocco Omari as saying: “I got in my share of fights, watched men shoot up HEROINE or overdose on HEROINE…”

“Heroine” means girl or woman who’s admired by many for doing something brave or good, or the main female character in a story.

Then we’ve HEROIN, (remove the E after N), which is a powerful illegal drug made from morphine, and this is what Mr Omar was talking about, not heroine!

Now let’s take a look at Page 7 of Bongo’s senior-most broadsheet of Sat, Jan 26, where there’s a piece entitled, ‘Cartoons always put a smile on us’. The scribbler writes:

“In our HEYDAYS, we also enjoyed artistic work …” Heydays? No siree! We say HEYDAY (the TIME things were wow!)—even if you’ve in mind many good old DAYS.

Finally, we move to Page 9 of the same broadsheet where, in his column, ‘Worthy to be illustrated’, our colleague writes about this gifted preacher, Daniel Mgogo: “Born in 1969 in Lupepo Village as A FIRST born to Mzee Andendekisye Mgogo and Mama Enea…” A firstborn? Nope…he’s THE firstborn, because the status (first born) is specific to just ONE offspring of mum and dad. Just as we’ve THE lastborn (not A lastborn) to so-and-so.

Ah, this treacherous language called English!