Cops seize 10 ammunitions? No, say 10 rounds of ammunition

In one of our recent edition of ‘Our Kind of English’ I warned users of English to be careful with the preposition, noting that this one is arguably the most treacherous grammatical component of Queen Elizabeth’s mother tongue. I will share two pickings, both of which I collected from the tabloid closely associated with me, in order to further illustrate the miseries that prepositions cause scribblers.

In its Friday, Sept 10 edition, there is a story on Page 10 entitled, ‘How the govt plans to bolster livestock keepers’ interests’. Therein the scribbler says in the intro:

“The government is planning to establish a livestock authority that would be mandated WITH ensuring that pastureland is readily available to livestock…”

Mandated with doing something? Nope! One is mandated TO do something. Look at the following example from our most trusted wordbook, the Advanced Oxford Learner’s Dictionary: The assembly was mandated TO DRAFT a constitution (not ‘with’ drafting a constitution).

On Page 20 of the same edition, there is another story with the headline, ‘Biashara FC kick off CAF campaign’, in which the scribbler says in Para 2:

“Speaking yesterday, the Biashara Mara United manager, Frank Wabare, said despite the fact that they arrived late in Djbouti FOR unavoidable reasons, the players’ morale is very high and they are ready to play.”

Hello; they didn’t arrive late in Djibouti for unavoidable reasons; rather, they arrived there late DUE TO unavoidable reasons.

Come Saturday, Sept 11, and Bongo’s senior-most broadsheet had a story on Page 4 with this headline, ‘Distance ATTRIBUTED to low vaccination uptake in Geita’. There is a mix-up in word use in this headline! As if that were not bad enough, the goof is underscored in the intro, for it reads:

“The distance to and from designated health facilities has been ATTRIBUTED to LOW TURNOUT for inoculation in Geita region.”

The expression “attributed to” has been used upside-down in relation to “low vaccination/inoculation”. Our scribbling colleague has (unwittingly) said that low vaccination has caused distance, a statement that doesn’t make any sense! The truth, of course, is vice versa, i.e. distance has caused/led to low vaccination.

I will redeem the lost message, starting with the headline, thus: ‘Low intake of vaccination in Geita ATTRIBUTED to distance’.

And the intro should read: “The LOW TURNOUT for inoculation in Geita Region has been ATTRIBUTED to distance to and from designated health facilities.”

On the back page, there is a good photo with a caption that reads:

“Tanzania paralympic team athletes PAUSE for a souvenir photo upon their arrival in Dar es Salaam from Tokyo, Japan where they represented the country in the Paralympic Games.”

Pause for a photograph? Not at all, we say! Our athletes POSED for a photograph.

And finally, a few gems from Bongo’s senior-most broadsheet’s Sunday edition (Sept 12). In this one, there is a story thus headlined, ‘Trio arrested for possession of 1,500 AMMUNITIONS’.

In the intro, the scribbler writes: “Police in Rukwa have apprehended 37 people for allegedly committing various crimes including three suspects in possession of 1,500 live AMMUNITIONS’.

That the word “ammunitions” is used at least seven times in the text, clearly indicates the scribbler is confident he has used the word correctly. And his gatekeeper, unfortunately, was influenced, and used it in the headline. Wrong!

“Ammunition” is an uncountable noun. It means, says our dictionary, a supply of bullets, etc, to be fired from guns. That is why, we talk of rounds of ammunition.

Which is to say, our colleagues should have talked about three suspects who were arrested with 1,500 ROUNDS of ammunition (not 1,500 ammunitions). It would be quite fine if they talked of “1,500 BULLETS.”

Ah, this treacherous language called English!