‘Blood pressure’ not illness, but ‘high blood pressure’ is

At the expense of sounding repetitive, let us say this: as a scribbler, always be humble and insist that another person goes through what you have written, no matter how good you rightly believe you are. Anything short of that may lead to misinforming or mis-educating readers. Or, at the personal level, you risk exposing yourself to ridicule. Why, we all make mistakes.

Having thus said, let us move on to our key task of sharing linguistic gems unearthed from the Bongo English press recently, so, here we go…

On Page 4 of the Friday, February 28 edition of the tabloid closely associated with this columnist, we had this story, “Ndulu laid to rest’. It was on the burial of one of Tanzania’s most respected economists and former BoT governor, Prof Benno Ndulu, who died on February 22. (May God rest the Prof’s soul in eternal peace.)

In Para 3 of the story, our scribbling colleague reports: “Family spokesman…said the fallen governor died after suffering from BLOOD PRESSURE and diabetes for two months.”

Hang on! Blood pressure is not an illness in itself; however, there is an illness associated with a person’s blood pressure: HIGH blood pressure—HBP in short. It is also called HYPERTENSION. Our medical sources inform us that HBP is a condition in which the force of the blood against the artery walls is too high.

Touching on the profile of the departed Prof, the scribbler—purporting to attribute what he is telling his readers to a family spokesman—writes in Para 8: “…He was then appointed the governor of the BoT where he LASTED FOR ten years.”

Lasted for…? Nope! We drop the “for” and say “lasted ten years.” However, if you ask us, we would rather our colleague wrote: “…where he SERVED for ten years.” Sounds more apt.

On Page 6 of the same tabloid, we have the following headline, ‘It is high time student caning GET reviewed’. Nope! When you say “high time”, the verb which completes this phrase must be in the past tense. It means the headline should read, “It is high time student caning GOT reviewed”.

It is like when you tell friends dragging their feet when you are supposed to leave. You tell them, “Hey, guys, can’t you see it’s high time we LEFT?”

Then, in his text, the scribbler writes: “The findings of a study by HakiElimu, an NGO, indicate that 87.9 percent of schooling children…have been victims of abuse while 90 percent of them have said that they have been subjected to CAPITAL punishment.”

Capital punishment in our schools? Heavens, no! Capital punishment means DEATH penalty and certainly our teachers don’t deliver that, however cruel some of them might be.

From what is obtained in the headline (caning), we can say for sure our scribbling colleague had in mind CORPORAL punishment!

And now, a look at Page 4 of Bongo’s huge and colourful broadsheet (Saturday, February 27 edition) in which we have a story entitled, ‘Experts sensitise farmers on benefits of commercial production’.

In Para 4, purporting to quote what an official with an association of cassava stakeholders informed him, the scribbler writes:

“Tanzanian farmers can LEAP big from cassava crop if they could decide to invest heavily in farming…”

Leap big? We don’t think so, because the expression is nonsensical the way it is. We aver our colleague had in mind the word REAP, which is kuvuna in Kiswahili, while LEAP is ruka.

On the same page, there is another story with the headline, ‘Ikungulipu villagers all smiles after construction of 110.5m/-dispensary’. Therein, the scribbler says in Para 2:

“The move…will enable thousands of villagers who have been travelling 15km seeking FOR healthy services, to access them at the village.”

Hello; we don’t seek for something; we simply seek IT.

Ah, this treacherous language called English!