Nyalandu QUITTED ruling party in 2017? No; the word is QUIT

I am frequently reached by readers who expose goofs committed by page handlers of certain newspapers, asking me to publish the same, so that the “culprits” can take note and subsequently mend their linguistic waywardness.

I am always humbled by such readers’ concerns since, as I often say, ‘Our Kind of English’ is an interactive column—it belongs to the reader and me. It is ours. Whenever the concern is valid—as per my well considered judgement—I abide by the reader’s request.

Let us be honest here: there are goofs that some colleagues make, even on Page One, which makes me painfully wonder about the seriousness some professionals among us!

My decision is not to bother about any newspaper whose sub-editors “allow”—almost on a daily basis—their front pages (of all places!) to go to the printer with, not only one, but several headlines that violate English? My view is that such crudity and recklessness is beneath criticism!

Enough lecturing; so let me proceed with what this column is all about, i.e. sharing linguistic gems unearthed from recent editions of the English press in Bongo and beyond. So, here we go…

On Page 7 of the huge and colourful broadsheet of April 20, there is a story entitled, ‘Government relinquishes 700,000 hectares of reserves’, in which the scribbler says towards the end of her story:

“The Premier said that previously, farmers and livestock keepers were spending sleepless nights looking for farming and grazing areas, something which AFFECTED their economic HURDLES.”

The noun “hurdles” here is obviously misused, rendering the whole sentence illogical. Why, “hurdle”, says our Oxford Dictionary, means “a problem or difficulty that must be solved or dealt with before you can achieve something.”

We aver the Premier said the endless problems farmers and livestock keepers faced affected their economic PROGRESS (not hurdles).

And on April 1, a Nairobi daily that enjoys a sizeable readership in Bongo ran a story on Page 8 whose headline reads, ‘Bensouda: How Ruto scuttled poll violence case’. This one gives some details divulged by ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda showing that there are documents that purport that the Kenyan Deputy President, Dr William Ruto, was at the centre of witness tampering (sic!) in the post-1917 election violence case against him in The Hague.

Writes our Kenyan scribbling colleague in Para 2 of his story: “The ADVERSE accusation against Dr Ruto is contained in the list of evidence against Kenyan lawyer Paul Gacheru that was made public yesterday.”

The adjective “adverse”, according to my Oxford, defines “something that is NEGATIVE and UNPLEASANT, not likely to produce a good result.” And, so goes on our dictionary, “accusation” means “saying you think a person is guilty of doing something wrong, especially of committing a crime.”

It means, therefore, that you cannot rightly talk of someone facing POSITIVE accusation, because accusation by its very nature is adverse (opposite of positive) to a person facing it.

Saying “adverse accusation” is what Philip Ochieng would dismiss as “indulging in tautological nonsense”. How about saying, simply, accusation or, if you love verbosity, adverse EVIDENCE (not accusation).

Finally, a contribution from a reader. Writing via my WhatsApp address, one Mr Daniel Mwasandube drew my attention to a story that appeared on Page 2 of Bongo’s senior-most broadsheet of Saturday, May 2, whose headline is, ‘Home sweet home, Nyalandu joins CCM’. In this story, the scribble writes in Para 4 of her story: “Mr Nyalandu QUITTED Chama Cha Mapinduzi on 30 October and joined opposition Chadema…”

Quitted? Queried the reader. Of course, we share his concern, because the word “quitted” doesn’t exist in the English lexicon. The past tense for quit is QUIT, asserts the readers who went on to ask me to share his concern.

Ah, this treacherous language called English!