Saying ‘this includes, among others…’ is stating the very same thing twice!

A lot of this space was used up paying tribute to a retired private sector supremo who passed on recently and due to that, we shared much less than the usual number of gems. We’ll therefore attempt to compensate by moving fast without much ado and dish out what picked up over the past week. Here we go…

The Saturday, March 23 edition of Bongo’s senior-most broadsheet ran a Page 2 story headlined, ‘Education stakeholders join forces to curb violence against children.’

The intro reads: “Education stakeholders have called for more efforts to protect children against violence inside and outside OF schools.”

The preposition “of” is out of place. We need to say, “…inside and outside schools.”

In Para 5, the scribbler purports to quote a civil society organisation boss as saying, “…it is HIGH time for us as CSOs to come together by forming the coalition to lessen VIOLENCES acts.”

Ouch! Saying “violences acts” is, to be honest, far beneath even our routine kind of English. The noun “violence” is just that—violence. No plural. 

Furthermore, even if you correct that, it would still be unacceptable to say “violence acts” because the word “acts” is a noun, just as “violence” is. We don’t qualify a noun with a noun, do we?

It means, you may say “VIOLENT acts.” Or simply: VIOLENCE.

And how about: …it’s HIGH time for us as...? Drop the capped word, I suggest.

We move to Page 4 of the broadsheet where we take note of this story, ‘Mwanza intensifies efforts to attain HIV global target,’ in which the scribbler says in her intro: “At least 70 primary and secondary SCHOOLS’ students in Mwanza Region are set to benefit from reproductive health, behavioural change and gender-based violence education programme…”

Secondary schools’ students? Nope! Do say: ‘…secondary school students…”

In Para 3, our scribbling colleague writes further: “The Mwanza-based schools are set to be reached through…a six-year project…whose objectives INCLUDE, AMONG OTHERS, an increase in use of orphans and vulnerable children’s platform…”

When you say “include” you are already suggesting that what you’ll mention will be things that are among others. Which means, saying “to include, among others” is tautological—giving the same information twice. Sheer verbal wastefulness!

It means, you can express yourself in either of these two ways: “…whose objectives INCLUDE an increase in the use of…” or “…whose objectives are, AMONG OTHERS, an increase in the use…”

And now, a look at Bongo’s huge and colourful broadsheet of Saturday, March 23, which has a Page 4 story entitled, ‘RC pleads for friendly connection cost as water project completed.’

Hello! An RC is the governor of a region, part of the Executive. His voice is that of the President at regional level.

And just like the President, he doesn’t plead (which means “beg”) with village leaderships; he either orders or directs them. He can also “call for” this or that!

Indeed, the intro of the story reads (in reference to what the Manyara RC said): “The government has directed the leadership in Gidabagara Village…to set friendly water connection costs…” Correct!

In Para 8, the scribbler writes: “Also, A TOTAL OF 610 pupils in Gidabagara Primary School are expected to benefit from clean water taps…”

The use of the clause “a total of” is sheer wastage of print paper space, for it doesn’t add any value to the stated figure—610.

In the last paragraph of the story, the scribbler purports to quote one Khadija Mmasi, a beneficiary of the water project, and writes:

“We thank World Vision for this project. Our children will no longer go to school late or miss classes because of fetching water AT long distances.”

Fetching water at long distances? No; I aver that, our scribbling colleague based in Babati District, Manyara Region, meant to write: “…fetching water FROM long distances.”

Ah, this treacherous language called English!