When respected scribes opt to write ‘ALOT’ instead of ‘A LOT’!

Writing ALOT instead of A LOT (two words) is one of the commonest goofs that you are likely to bump into as you read an English newspaper in East Africa. Yes; you will find “alot’ of this misspelling even in articles penned by some otherwise fine, senior opinion scribblers.

LOT as a pronoun means a large number or a great deal. For example: “There are A LOT (not alot) of people in this small room.”

LOT as an adverb means a great deal, much. Here is an example: “He worked A LOT (not alot) last week.”

So, all we can say here regarding the word “lot” is: be careful, scribbler, whenever you find yourself in a situation where you have to use the word LOT!

Having thus lectured, let me now proceed with sharing linguistic gems unearthed in recent editions of the Bongo English press. Here we go…

Bongo’s huge and colourful broadsheet of Saturday, August 28, has a story on Page 2 whose headline reads, ‘Tanroads regional managers urged to reshuffle attendants at the WEIGH BRIDGES’.

In his intro, the scribbler writes:

“Deputy Minister for Works Mwita Waitara has directed the Tanroads regional managers to reshuffle attendants in WEIGHING BRIDGES to control corruption.”

There are two goofs here, beginning with the one that features on the headline, for the subeditor (the gatekeeper who, apart from cleaning up the reporter’s text, handles headlines), writes “weigh bridges” instead of weighbridges (one word).

The scribbler, for his part, writes “weighing bridges” instead of—if we are to repeat it—“WEIGHBRIDGES”. That he writes “weighing bridges” at least four times, means he is certain he considers it right to thus write. It is not right!

By the way, a weighbridge is a machine for weighing vehicles and their loads, usually with a platform onto which the vehicle is drive.

The same story provides a case in which we end up confusing our audiences instead of conveying information to them. In this one, our colleague, purporting to tell his readers what Deputy Minister Waitara said, writes:

“He also tasked the TANROAD (sic!) headquarters to OVERSEE the trend of the dishonest managers conspiring with their WORKING to TAKE corruption.” As to what the scribbler has said here, dear reader, your guess is as good as mine!

On Page 3 of the same edition, there is a story entitled, ‘Minister highlights need for youth’s development skills’. Purporting to report what was said by a minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, our scribbling colleague writes:

“According to her, Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa has already instructed MUNICIPALS to identify the youth and establish a database …”

“Municipals” to mean areas of governance? Nope! Why, as it has been pointed out here before, “municipal” is an adjective, not a noun! That is why we talk of a municipal council or municipal authorities. The noun is MUNICIPALITY. It means, Premier Majaliwa has given instructions to MUNICIPALITIES (not municipals).Or, municipal officials…

And then, Page 3 Bongo’s senior-most broadsheet (Saturday, August 28), there is a story whose headline reads, ‘Government pushes for robust cashew industry’. In this one, the scribbler purports to tell his readers what a minister instructed the country’s cashew nuts board to do. He therefore writes:

“He also tasked the CBT to start providing farming equipment to agricultural extension officers towards (sic!) improving extension services to farmers in cashew BASED regions.”

The scribbler uses the expression “cashew based” regions at least twice in his story, which means he believes he knows what he is saying. However, the idea of having a region that is BASED on cashew, or any other crop for that matter, sounds rather strange!

We would rather our colleague talked about cashew-GROWING (instead of cashew-based…) regions.