Weather ‘condition’? No; you should simply say ‘the weather’
Let me dwell—again—on my perpetual beef: our poor sense of punctuation. I get quite disturbed when I come across a sentence that is several kilometres long. And, in most cases, what is purported to be one sentence (since it is not marked by a full stop anywhere), is actually several sentences lumped together. Phew!
If you are a WhatsApp subscriber in some group, you will understand what I am ranting about. Known holders of at least a Form 4 certificate bombard fellow subscribers with messages that are totally insensitive of what punctuation is all about! No commas, no question marks, etc.
You get even more annoyed when you find names of people that have been penned starting with small letters! That proper nouns—like names of people (e.g. Abdi), places (Moshi), rivers (Pangani) or mountains (Kilimanjaro)—must begin with a capital letter, is a lower primary school writing skill, isn’t it?
This kind of illiteracy speaks volumes about the quality of teaching that our youth are receiving in our institutions of learning, from the bottom to the very top! Which means stakeholders, including centres that train journalists, must pay more attention to the component of punctuation in language courses.
Having thus lectured, let me now proceed with sharing linguistic gems recently unearthed from the Bongo English press. Here we go…
I bumped into quote with a goof that is too common that it will be unfair to expose the “culprit.” The quote is thus written:
“We are here because of the good weather CONDITION and we can work on both artificial and natural grass which is very good…”
The qualifier “condition” in the above quote is absolutely unnecessary. Take a look at the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary’s definition of “weather”:
“(It is) the CONDITION of the atmosphere at a particular place and time, such as temperature, and if there is wind, rain, sun, etc.”
The Oxford provides a few sentences as examples of how the word is used:
• I am not going out in this weather;
• There is going to be a change in the weather, and
• We shall have the party outside, weather permitting.
One can be forgiven to suspect the tendency to qualify “weather” with “condition” is borne of our Kiswahili linguistic exposure, whereby we say, “hali ya hewa”. Our Meteorological Department personnel are apt to talk of “utabiri wa hali ya hewa”, “hali” being Kiswahili for “condition”. However, in English, that’s simply, “weather forecast” (not weather condition forecast).
In the Sat, Aug 21 of the tabloid closely associated with this columnist, there is a story entitled, ‘How people living with HIV cope with the Covid-19 situation’. Therein, the scribbler says in Para 11;
“REPORTS by the World Health Organisation CONFIRMS that people living with HIV are at increased risk…”
The noun that determines what the verb tense describing it should be, isn’t the WHO (which is singular); it is “reports” (plural). So, our scribbler should have said the global organisation “CONFIRM (not confirms) that…”
And now, some gems from Bongo’s senior-most broadsheet (Sat, Aug 21 edition). Herein, there is story on Page 2 whose headline reads, ‘TIC, ZIPA sign pact for closer collaboration’ and the scribbler, purports to quote a senior official and writes:
“There are some areas where our FELLOW Zipa ARE more experienced than us….” Our fellow Zipa are…? Nope, siree! It should be: …our fellows IN Zipa ARE more experienced…
In Para 11, the scribbler writes: “ON HIS SIDE, Zipa Director, Shariff, said the collaboration between Tic and Zipa intends to strengthen investment…”
On his side? It is true we say “kwa upande wake” in our national language (“upande” being Kiswahili for “side”). However, in translating that into English, we say, FOR HIS PART (not on his side).
Ah, this treacherous language called English!
