OUR KIND OF ENGLISH: Of ‘temporary’ suspension of league matches and call for ‘scrapping’ of extortionate taxes

Friday, January 24, 2025 - 4 min read

BRENTFOD? Not at all! The English football club, founded in 1889 is BRENTFORD (note our R between O and D). The other English club featuring in this signboard is NOT Aston VILA; it’s Aston VILLA (double L), founded in 1874. The signboard also features what the signwriter says is ORAND PIRATE. Not true! The CAF Champions League participants, the South African soccer club (established in 1937) that whipped Egypt’s Al Ahly 2-1 on January 18 is called ORLANDO PIRATES. Trust signwriters! PHOTO | AMS

By Abdi Sultani

What you need to know:

Come October this year and we will, as a country, hold a general ELECTION (not elections), which will avail us with the democratic opportunity to elect the President, MPs and members of local councils.

This is Bongo’s election year. The biggest political parties, i.e. the ruling CCM and the opposition outfit Chadema, elected top party honchos this week. The CCM, to be exact, elected a new deputy chairman for the Mainland, following the resignation of Mr Abulrahman Kinana in July last year. What took place this week is what you can refer to as INTRA-PARTY ELECTIONS.
Come October this year and we will, as a country, hold a general ELECTION (not elections), which will avail us with the democratic opportunity to elect the President, MPs and members of local councils.
So, dear scribbling colleague, be wary of telling your readers that Bongo is looking forward to holding general “elections” later this year. However, if you drop the qualifier “general,” feel free to refer to the October exercise as ELECTIONS.
Having thus lectured (sorry!), let’s now proceed with sharing linguistic gems we picked this week. Here we go… Bongo’s senior-most and authoritative broadsheet of Saturday, January 18, has a story on Page 4 entitled, ‘NIC Insurance, Equity Bank team up for agri-insurance digital loans.’ Its intro reads: “In EFFORT to drive the national economy through the financial sector, NIC Tanzania Insurance and Equity Bank have entered into a strategic partnership…”
Hang on! The word “effort” is a countable noun and so, our colleague ought to have preceded it with indefinite article “an”—in AN EFFORT to drive the national economy…
If the scribbler were allergic to the idea of prefixing the word with an article, he should pluralise it and write: “In EFFORTS to drive the national economy…”
On the same page, there’s another story entitled, ‘Taxpayer appeal for harmonisation of revenue collections.’ In this one, the scribbler, purporting to quote a district council official, writes the following:
“There is CRITICAL need to introduce tax education in schools’ syllabus right from the primary level…” Hello! The word “need” too is a countable noun. Therefore, before the adjective that qualifies it, an indefinite article should be inserted. So, our colleague should’ve written: “There is A CRITICAL need to introduce tax education in schools’ syllabus…” In the last paragraph of his story, our colleague, purportedly reporting what a senior Bukoba traders’ association official said, he writes: “He proposed that such fees should be SCRAPPED…”
Hang on! The association official spoke on the need to remove unfavourable fees that his members are charged, right? Now that’s not scrapping (from the verb “scrap”); it’s scraping (from the verb “scrape”). Which is to say, the scribbler should’ve written: “He proposed that such fees should be SCRAPED…”
And now, let’s give a look at what we unearthed from Bongo’s huge and colourful broadsheet of Wednesday, January 22. On its Page 5, there’s an amazing photo whose caption is written this way: “A motorcycle rider carries overloaded stuff along Musoma Road in Nyamagana District, Mwanza Region yesterday. OVERLOAD is cited as one of the threats of road safety.”
Overload is cited as…? Nope! The word is a verb, yet our colleague used it as a noun. The caption scribbler ought to have converted it to verb-noun, i.e. a gerund, and tell his readers this: OVERLOADING is cited as...” On Page 10, we find a story with the headline, ‘Fixture amendments confirmed for Premier League resumption.’ The intro of this one is written this way:
“The Tanzania Premier League Board has officially released the fixtures for the Premier League, with matches set to resume early next month after a TEMPORARY suspension.”
Hello! When an activity is on suspension, it’s obvious that it’s just a matter of time before it resumes; it’s temporary. As to how long the temporariness will take, that’s another matter! It means, saying something is on “temporary suspension” is to entertain wasteful use of words!
Ah, this treacherous language called English!

OUR KIND OF ENGLISH: Of ‘temporary’ suspension of league matches and call for ‘scrapping’ of extortionate taxes

What you need to know:

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