Sometime, some time and sometimes; check them out

My bag of linguistic gems is filled to the brim, which is why I shall skip my usual tutorial blah-blah and move straight to the task of sharing what I gathered over the week. So, here we go…

In the Saturday, May 15 edition of Bongo’s huge and colourful broadsheet, there is a story with the headline, ‘Jafo stresses need for environmental impact assessment of abattoir project’. Therein, the scribbler says in Para 2:

“During his two DAYS tour of Kigoma, Jafo TOURED the abattoir construction project and found that it was being CONDUCTED without any environmental impact assessment.”

When you tell readers that someone who is in a tour, toured, the monotony is too glaring to ignore. That is why I aver that one of the “tours” should be dropped.

And then, do we really “conduct” a project? I don’t think so. Furthermore, when you convert a noun—such as “day”— to an adjective, ensure you don’t pluralise it.

On top of that, we need to hyphenise an adjective when it is in a compound form. Having thus explained, let me now sort our colleague’s sentence with the following rewrite:

“During his two-DAY tour of Kigoma, Jafo VISITED the abattoir construction project and found that it was being UNDERTAKEN without any environmental impact assessment.”

In Para 4, our Kigoma-based colleague reports further on what Hon. Jafo said during his visit to the abattoir construction site:

“He said if the MUNICIPAL will fail to register the PROJECT, he will suspend the PROJECT.”

There are two issues here. One, the scribbler uses the adjective “municipal” as if it were a noun while it is not.

Which is why, he should have said MUNICIPALITY (a noun). We talk of Kigoma Municipal Council. It means, Kigoma urban area is a municipality.

Two, I am made to ask: don’t they teach parts of the sentence anymore in our schools and colleges? My question is triggered by the use of the word “project” which has already been used earlier in the short sentence instead of replacing it with the pronoun IT. “…suspend IT (not suspend the project).

Let us now move on and see what Bongo’s senior-most broadsheet of Saturday, May 15 has to offer. On Page 4, there is a story entitled, ‘President Samia appoints Dr Tax, suspends Sabaya’, in which the scribbler says in Para 5:

“Moreover, President Samia has appointed Mr Nsubii Akomeligwe Kajela Joshua the clerk to the Cabinet. Prior to the appointment, Mr Joshua was acting in that capacity for SOME TIMES.”

Act for some times? Not at all. A person can hold a job for SOME TIME, which means for a period of time—usually a long period. However, “sometimes” (one word), means “occasionally” as opposed to all the time.

On the same page, there is another story entitled, ‘Minister for fresh environ for coops’. Reporting on what Minister Selemani Jafo said while on a tour of Urambo District in Tabora Region, our scribbling colleague wrote:

“He commended farmers and residents for applying modern technology in drying tobacco instead of using fire WOODS, which leads to the cutting of trees.”

Fire woods? No, siree! If we are talking about wood that is burnt as fuel, we ought to say FIREWOOD (one word).

And finally, a look at what there is in the tabloid whose boss signs my paycheque (Friday, 14 edition). In this one, there is a story on Page 12 headlined, ‘Kwizera Samuel: Why dance is my language’, whereby the scribbler says in Para 10:

“Although Samuel is now a RENOWN dancer in Africa and beyond and beyond, his life has not always been as smooth as it may seem.”

Renown dancer? No; Samuel is a RENOWNED dancer… And, you may say he is a dancer of great renown.

Ah, this treacherous language called English!