‘Hand’ hoe, ‘relative’ ministry and it is ‘better’ said than done
We often reprimand colleagues in this column that’s several decades old, on the falsity of referring to Bongo’s popular farming implement, jembe, as hand hoe.
Founding Father of the Nation Mwalimu Julius Nyerere used to express concern over the backward nature of TZ’s farming methods. In his trademark sense of humor, Mwalimu would tell us how virtually impossible it would be, to lift our peasants from the abyss of poverty given that their farming methods were “reminiscent of those of Adam and Eve”. He would lament of our farmers’ back-breaking use of jembe la mkono.
It has been this Kiswahili expression he popularized, jembe la mkono, which gave birth to its misguided literal English translation, “hand hoe.”
However, while jembe la mkono is okay in the Kiswahili lexicon—since we also have jembe la plau or jembe la trekta—jembe la mkono can’t pass muster when literally translated into English “hand hoe”.
Why, our Oxford Dictionary defines “hoe” as, “a garden tool with a long handle and blade for breaking up soil and removing weeds.”
And then, the Saturday, 26 edition of Bongo’s huge and colorful broadsheet had a Page 6 story entitled ‘Musoma Municipality, Rorya to benefit from 5-year Usaid Tulonge Afya project’.
In Para 7, the scribbler writes in reference to what a senior NGO official said: “…they will also form groups to facilitate provision of TRAININGS whereby educators will be meeting each of the groups…”
Trainings? No siree! “Training” is an uncountable noun. It’s apparent that some scribblers are influenced by the Kiswahili word mafunzo, which sounds plural.
In our national language, “ma” denotes a plural morpheme, like when you’ve maneno which is plural for singular noun neno (word).
But watch it! Mafunzo in the context of training isn’t a plural noun, for it’s an uncountable noun. We take learners through numerous training sessions (not numerous “trainings”) over a period of, say, one week. One training session isn’t funzo, it’s still mafunzo. Check that out.
Then, we’ve this gem towards the end of the story. Our colleague, purporting to quote a certain doctor, wrote this:
“There are some mothers who have been refusing to breastfeed their babies claiming that their BREASTS (sic!) shape (sic) will be DESTROYED; there are also challenges IN regard to poor fathers’ involvement in child rearing.”
We’ll leave the final part of the longish sentence for the reader to critique. For the second part let’s note that we say, “…WITH regard to…” (not “in regard to”).
Let’s move on to the huge and colourful broadsheet of Saturday, September 26. In a Page 7 story entitled, “Government refutes politicians’ claims of unplanned, unbudgeted projects”, the scribbler writes:
“…all strategic projects under implementation in the country were planned within sectoral budgets of RELATIVE ministries and were endorsed by the Parliament.”
Relative ministries? Could it be that our scribbling colleague was reporting about PARENT ministries? Or, maybe, RELEVANT ministries? Either of these two would be okay with us, but relative ministries? No! In Kiswahili we’ve wizara mama and wizara husika.
Finally, let’s sample goodies from the Sunday, September 27 edition of the tabloid associated with this columnist. In a Page 4 story entitled, ‘Why subletting is rife in city’s prime locations’, the scribbler narrates her experience in Para 3:
“At least 10 years down the line, I am seated in Hamis’s living room in the same house he fought FOR tooth and nail…while he recounts how he managed to remain the last man standing.”
Fight for tooth and nail? Nope! We simply say: “FIGHT TOOTH and nail…”
In the same edition, an opinion scribbler says in her piece, “No woman should stay with a man who is violent. Unfortunately, some things are BETTER said than done.”
Things are better said than done? A-a! Our colleague has tampered with an idiom, and that’s not allowed. We say: “...some things are EASIER (not better) said than done!
Ah, this treacherous language called English!
