Beware tutorial quacks who promise you Queen’s English in few months!
Parking RECEIVED? Oh, Lord, no! The parking space below the sign is meant for teachers and non-teaching staff for the famous Kisiwandui School. That’s what our good reader in the Clove Islands learnt. Which is to say, the signwriter let down the management of the good school, which we’re certain commissioned him to paint “Parking RESERVED.” Trust Signwriters! PHOTO | STEVE K
If you’re a dedicated reader of this column, we’re certain you’re keen on seeing to it that your young children and even grandchildren grow up to be competent in English, for it pays.
How do you achieve this? Take them to a “good school”? Hire private English language teachers for them? Organise for them a long study tour of a country where English is spoken as a national language?
I wouldn’t disagree to any these suggestions but, I aver, they wouldn’t be enough. Reason? They aren’t sustainable. What you need to do is to inculcate in your young the culture of reading books.
The earlier you start doing that, the better. Buy them books and make sure they read them, encourage them to join a book club and push them to make use of the nearest public library.
Furthaermore, encourage them to speak the language…even if they make mistakes. It’s a waste of money to organise English tuition sessions for them if that isn’t complemented with a lot of reading.
Ignore the quacks who promise they can enable your child speak the Queen’s English in a couple of weeks, “short of which you get your money back.” Ha! Ha! Ha!
Having thus lectured (bah!) let’s now share linguistic gems we unearthed in recent editions of Bongo’s English media. Here we go…
We’ve in our hands a copy of the Friday, January 23 edition of Bongo’s huge and colourful broadsheet whose caption for a Page 1 photo reads: “PASSENGERS disregard a standing warning by crossing a Kimara Mwisho section of the Morogoro Road to enter the Dar es Salaam Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) station yesterday instead of using the pedestrian overhead bridge…”
We’ve critiqued this before, but since the goof is persisting, let’s go over it again. So, who’s a passenger? Our wordbook defines this noun as “a traveller on a public or private conveyance other than the driver, pilot or crew.”
It means, if you’re talking about someone heading to a vehicle he’d board, call him a traveller! On Page 5, there’s a story entitled, 'Zanzibar strengthens child protection systems, training on digital case care.’ Therein, the scribbler purports to quote an official as saying: “The police have a HEAVY responsibility to protect children so they can live in safe, peaceful environments.”
How about dropping the adjective “heavy” and simply settle for: “…have a responsibility to protect…”? If you ask us, ensuring citizens’ safety is a police duty and defining it as either heavy or light is indulging in superfluity.Then, we look at the Saturday, January 31 edition of Bongo’s senior-most broadsheet, Page 4 of which has a story with the headline, ‘China–Zanzibar partnership boosts NTDs on Pemba.’ In the last paragraph, the scribbler writes in regard to what an official said: “He added that the awareness campaign and diagnostic training WOULD not only enhance the skills of frontline health workers, BUT ALSO enhance community understanding…”
An essential verb “would” to complement “would” that follows “training” is missing in the phrase “but also…” Here’s our rewrite, in part: “…diagnostic training WOULD not only enhance the skills of frontline health workers, BUT would ALSO enhance community understanding…” A similar syntactical lapse appears in a foreign story on Page 17, entitled, ‘Fela Kuti to receive Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award,’ in which the scribbler writes:
“Fela Kuti WAS NOT simply a musician, BUT ALSO a cultural theorist, political agitator and undisputed architect of Afrobeat…”
Here’s our redeeming rewrite: “Fela Kuti WAS NOT simply a musician, BUT was ALSO a cultural theorist, political agitator and undisputed architect of Afrobeat…” Or: “Fela Kuti WAS NOT simply a musician, HE was ALSO a cultural theorist, political agitator and undisputed architect of Afrobeat…”
