We don’t land INTO trouble; rather, we do land IN trouble

A reader drew our attention to an article appearing in the Friday, March 26 edition of the tabloid that is closely associated with this columnist, entitled ‘Live band isn’t Bongo Flava artistes’ forte’. In Para 3, of this one, our colleague writes:

“With the Barnaba show in Zanzibar, only a few AUDIENCES within a larger (sic!) crowd understood Swahili, as such the AUDIENCE were not as responsive to his hype.”

There is a bit of confusion here—the words “audiences” and “audience” are being used as if they mean exactly the same thing. Now let us look at the meaning of “audience”: the word means a group of people who have gathered to watch or listen to something, i.e. play, concert, somebody speaking, etc.

We aver that when our colleague wrote “…the audiences within a larger crowd”, he had in mind the words “members of the audience”. Why, when you say “audiences”, you should be talking in reference to groups of people attending shows, etc, at different venues.

Here is our rewrite of the scribbler’s sentence:

“During Barnaba’s show in Zanzibar, only a few members of the AUDIENCE understood Kiswahili and as such, they were not that much responsive to his hype.”

Fast forward to yet another Friday, the date of which is April 9. On this day, another edition of the above cited tabloid has a story on Page 5 whose headline reads, ‘Make and use right packaging materials, or…’

In this one, the scribbler says in his intro: “Users, distributors, producers and importers of sub-standard packaging materials will effective today land INTO trouble, including paying hefty fines…”

Land into trouble? Nope; people land IN trouble. Now if you are keen on using the preposition “into”, feel free to say this: GET into trouble.

And now, something from Bongo’s huge and colourful broadsheet of Saturday, April 10, on which date we find a story on Page 3, entitled, ‘CAG talks of massive rot in government, public agencies’. Therein, the scribbler, purporting to quote the Controller and Auditor General, writes the following:

“During my working tour at the parking lot of state AIRCRAFTS on August 19, 2020, I found out that the said repaid aircraft was not was not operating…”

Aircrafts? Nope! The plural for aircraft, says our Oxford Dictionary, is simply AIRCRAFT! And by the way, a building in which aircraft are kept is called HANGAR. We believe this is the word which the CAG would have used if he were presenting his report in English.

The scribbler reports further in reference to what the CAG says in his report regarding thievery of Bongo’s taxpayers’ resources and writes:

“At Magogoni Ferry, about Sh2.6 billion was lost because of a poor system in electronic tickets, meaning the money might have ended in the pockets of some SCRUPULOUS officials.”

Heavens, no! Persons who divert public funds to their pockets instead of State coffers are thieves! Which is to say, our colleague commits a serious mistake when he defines them as “scrupulous”!

Why, the adjective “scrupulous” is used to describe fellows who are conscientious, that is, clean individuals. The word to describe thieves exposed by the Controller and Auditor General is UNSCRUPULOUS. These are persons without scruples, that is, individuals who lack feelings of doubt or hesitation with regard to morality.

On the same day, that is, Saturday, April 10, Bongo’s senior-most broadsheet ran a story on Page 4 entitled, ‘Kyerwa resident nabbed for impregnating Standard IV pupil’, in which the scribbler writes in reference to what the prosecutor told the court:

“He prayed for a MUCH harsh sentence, contending that the offence denied the victim OF the right to attend school.”

We will avoid fussing and simply offer a rewrite instead, and here it is: “He prayed for a HARSH sentence, contending that the offence denied the victim THE right to attend school.”

Ah, this treacherous language called English!