We don’t borrow a loan; we take it, or we borrow money

Page 2 of the Saturday, March 5 edition of the massive Nairobi tabloid that commands a sizeable readership in Bongo carried a story entitled, ‘Twitter cheat conned love-struck women out of Sh3.5 million’.

It is a story of a young handsome thug, one EGM, who thanks to Twitter, won the hearts of at least three well-heeled Kenyan ladies who fell for him, even before meeting him “live”.

They gave him lots of money, ostensibly on credit. And where did the love-struck ladies get the money to help out their online love? Their banks or company accounts.

Gives credence to the maxim, love is blind. Ksh3.5 million, as we would say in Bongo’s Kiswahili slang, si pesa ya kitoto. It’s not a childish amount. Why, it translates into over Tsh80 million!

Now here is how our Nairobi scribbling colleague explains the ladies’ dire situation: “The forlorn women are now paying back huge LOANS that they BORROWED to furnish his house and maintain his posh and luxurious lifestyle…”

Loans they borrowed? No sir, because accepting this expression would be endorsing tautological nonsense. Why, a loan is borrowed money. It means, our colleague should have said, “The forlorn women are now repaying huge LOANS they TOOK (not borrowed) to furnish his house and maintain his luxurious lifestyle…”Or, the huge amounts of MONEY they BORROWED…

Back to Bongo on the same date (March 5), whereby our senior-most broadsheet ran a Page 1 story entitled, ‘How DPP notice ended Mbowe’s case’. Now this is a headline, not a sentence, so why not just “Mbowe case” instead of Mbowe’s case?

In this one, the intro reads: “The Corruption and Economic Crime division of the High Court….discharged… Mr Freeman Mbowe and three former commandos of the TPDF who were facing TERRORIST-related charges.”

Oh, no! Mr Mbowe and Co were facing TERRORISM (not terrorist)-related charges. The qualifier “related” is actually unnecessary here—it is just space wasting verbosity! The trio was facing, simply, “terrorism charges.”

On Page 4 of the same edition, there is a photo taken by a colleague in Zanzibar whose caption reads: “Zanzibar President, Dr Hussein Ali Mwinyi participates in THE PRAYER led by Mufti of Zanzibar, Sheikh Saleh Omar Kabi at the graves of THE departed Muslim scholars before he later attended THE Friday PRAYER at Masjid Malindi in Zanzibar…”

The “prayer” led by…? Even if saying “prayer” was correct, the article should be indefinite “a” not the definite “the”. However, our main issue here is that people participate in PRAYERS not “prayer”. On the fifth day of the week, for instance, Muslim adherents go for Friday PRAYERS (not prayer). Before sunrise, believers gather to perform the morning PRAYERS—Swalatu’l Subhi.

Our excerpted version of the caption: “Zanzibar President participates in PRAYERS (not the prayer) led by Mufti of Zanzibar…at the graves of DEPARTED (not the departed) Muslim scholars before he later attended the Friday PRAYERS…”

On Page 3 of the tabloid’s edition, there is a story entitled, ‘Sh890bn SPEND on improving health sector’. This is a classic case of how mother-language influence blows us up. In some of our local languages, differentiating sounds “nt” and “nd” is a nightmare! Of course, our subeditor who penned this headline set out to write “Sh890bn SPENT on…”

In Para 6 of the story, the scribbler purports to report on what the energetic minister Ummy Mwalimu said when she addressed pressmen and women in Dar recently.

“Speaking during A PRESS here, Ms Mwalimu said…”

It is pity that we of the English print media get carried away by our PR fellows who, while giving an address in Kiswahili, are wont to say “niliitisha PRESS, nikasema…” Utter nonsense, of course! Yet, we copy them! Niliitisha press conference, nikasema…”

Saying it in pure Kiswahili (Nilifanya mkutano na waandishi wa habari) denies you the opportunity to show you are “also educated.” Bah!

Ah, this treacherous language called English!