‘Live’ style diseases; murder ‘without intention’

In a story appearing on Page 4 of Bongo’s huge and colourful broadsheet of February 18, entitled “Hunt launched to nab parents keeping children from school,” the scribbler, purporting to quote a government official, writes:

“We will NOT DETER in our commitment to this matter… each and every child who qualifies to go to secondary school must do so…”

We won’t deter? Nope, if we’re to go by what our dictionary says. It says “deter” means: “to PREVENT or DISCOURAGE someone from doing something by making it difficult for them to do it or by threatening bad results if they do it.”

Which is to say, you don’t just deter; you deter somebody/you’re deterred FROM doing something. Envious people could deter you FROM achieving your goal. Keeping dogs DETERS thieves.

It means our colleague ought to have said: “We will NOT BE DETERRED in our commitment to this matter…” or “Nobody will DETER us FROM our commitment to educate every child…”

In the subsequent Para, that notorious grammatical component which linguists call “preposition” (“kihusishi” in Kiswahili) messes up our colleague in the following sentence, which we quote in part: “… pastoral societies do not find it practical to enrol their children TO schools ...”

The thing is, we don’t enrol someone TO school; we enrol them AT/IN school. This was really a gem-filled story, as our colleague continues thus: “…because of the nature of their LIVE style in search of FOOD and water for their herds.”

No, it is not “LIVE STYLE” it is “LIFESTYLE” (one word, and it’s not “live” but life(style)). And then, how about food for herds, such as cows and goats? Maybe that’s okay, but we’d rather “food” was confined to human beings and, maybe, pets such cats and dogs, which happen to be human beings’ best friends anyway!

At this columnist’s home front, we had, on Wednesday, February 19, a story on Page 3 entitled, “Magufuli okays house agency to secure loans”, in which our colleague says: “ For his SIDE the director of technical services in the ministry, Dr William Nshama, said …”

This is an old problem; it occurs when our previous language experience afflicts us as we endeavour to communicate in an alien language, like here when the scribbler says “for his SIDE”. It so happens in Kiswahili , in which we say, “kwa UPANDE wake”.

This columnist did, for quite some period in the past, campaign against the falsity of saying “on my SIDE”, whereas we’re supposed to say “for my PART”. Which is to say, our colleague ought to have said: “For his PART, the director of technical services in the ministry, Dr William Nshama …”

And then, on Page 2 of Bongo’s senior-most broadsheet (Tuesday, February 18 edition), in a story entitled, “Dar actress Lulu denies killing Kanumba”, the court scribbler reports:

“Lulu is charged with MURDERING WITHOUT INTENTION a former local movie star Steven Kanumba…”

Murdering without intention? Another case of previous language interference, this! In Kiswahili, “ua bila kukusudia.” The language has only one word used to describe the act of ending another’s life. It’s UA, which is basically, “kill”.

While in English we call intentional killing “murder”, (to the best of our knowledge) we don’t have this word’s Kiswahili synonym. So, when murder happens, we simply say “ua” (kill) and further qualify it with “kwa kukusudia” (intentionally).

The single English word (noun) which informs us one killed another without intention is “MANSLAUGHTER”. Trouble is, this can’t be transformed into a verb – manslaughtering – like in “murder” which becomes “murdering”.

And the word “murder”, in itself, means killing intentionally. So, when our colleague says “murdering without intention” he becomes guilty of engaging in contradiction.

He should use the neutral word “killing” and come up with “…killing without intention local movie star (not ‘former’ film star!) Steve Kanumba.” Or he could say, “Lulu is charged with the MANSLAUGHTER of local movie star Steve Kanumba.”

The scribbler further writes: “While preparing themselves, the accused person came … and went straight to the DECEASED room.” Oh, no! He went to the DECEASED’S room.

The scribbler continues: “After some few minutes, the DECEASED YOUNG BROTHER heard (them) quarrelling.” Nope! It was the DECEASED’S YOUNGER (not young) brother…

Ah, this treacherous language called English!