You aren’t ‘passenger’ till you board the bus

In a story appearing on PAGE 1 of Bongo’s senior-most broadsheet (Monday, Jan. 5), there’s story entitled, “Woman severely injured by jealous husband in Mara”, in which the scribbler says in the intro:

“A woman is nursing serious wounds … following a severe beating by her husband who had accused her of EXTRA-MARITAL RELATIONS.”

He continues in Para 3: “… she said after her husband arrived …he started accusing her of HAVING AN EXTRA-MARITAL RELATIONSHIP with another man.”

It’s the same story on an alleged brutal husband and his battered wife; however, the excuse for his cruelty which is first described as “relations” (plural), becomes “relationship” (singular) in Para 3. How?

We often tend to confuse ourselves and our readers when we become unduly complex expressions, which is against the basics of effective journalism that is underlined by simplicity.

Our colleague here would have made things easier for himself and his readers by simply saying: “…the husband accused the wife of having AN AFFAIR.” Alternatively, he’d have said: the man alleged that his wife was unfaithful. Or, was cheating on him. Let’s avoid sounding like NGO-sponsored paper presenters.

In the last Para of his story, the scribbler makes an observation: “Domestic violence has of late TAKEN much coverage in LOCAL media IN MARA Region.”

Just a minute…local media in Mara Region? Newspapers published in Mara? Do we have radio and TV stations in there? We doubt it.

The use of the adjective “local” before “media” refers to the Bongo press as a whole, but it’s unnecessary in most cases because, unless otherwise stated, an incident involving matters like the primitive habit of beating up a wife, be it in Mara of elsewhere in our country, is unlikely to be of interest to international media.

And, events don’t TAKE coverage in the media; they GET (or RECEIVE) it. So, our colleague’s sentence could be rewritten to read: “Domestic violence in Mara Region has of late been GETTING a lot of coverage in the media.” On the same date, Page 5 of Bongo’s huge and colourful broadsheet ran a story entitled, “Sumatra to monitor fare hiking…” in which the scribbler writes:

A survey conducted by this paper at Ubungo Bus TERMINAL witnessed PASSENGERS getting NORMAL services from ticket agents with the number of PASSENGERS was NORMAL compared to last week WHERE (sic) there were hundreds of PASSENGERS hanging around at the TERMINAL.”

Monotonous. This is the word that describes this sentence, in which the word “terminal” appears twice and so does “normal”, while “passengers” features three times!

We also have an issue with diction here: people who aren’t yet in a vehicle, more so if they’re just “hanging around at the terminal’’ without even a ticket in hand, aren’t passengers yet. Calling them TRAVELLERS is okay.

Incidentally, our counterparts in the Kiswahili press often commit the same goof too, when, for instance, they cover the annual transport crisis caused by the culture of Kilimanjaro natives in the Diaspora, who consider it mandatory to go home—by hook or by crook—for family reunions.

The scribblers invariably say: “ABIRIA wakihangaika kutafuta tiketi za kwenda Moshi” (passengers hankering to get tickets to Moshi), instead of “WASAFIRI wakihangaika…” [We owe this awareness on traveller/passenger confusion to ardent reader and contributor, one HM of Segerea, Dar].

Finally, a couple of gems from Page 5 of the Sunday tabloid whose boss signs this columnist’s pay cheque (Jan. 11 edition), entitled “Baby stolen in Tanzania found in Kenya”, in which the scribbler says in his intro:

“POLICE in Mara Region have arrested two persons AFTER BEING FOUND with a seven-month-old baby who was REPORTED stolen by a house help from Kenya a week ago.”

Do you get what our colleague is saying here? He is saying: the police were found with a baby who was reportedly stolen, then they went ahead to arrest two persons. Unfair, isn’t it?

Now if what the scribbler is telling his readers is true, then it’s the police who should be arrested. Yes.

However, we’d rather believe this was just a case of losing track of the subject of the sentence on the part of a scribbler who must have set out to say:

“POLICE in Mara Region have arrested two persons WHO WERE FOUND with a seven-month-old baby who was REPORTEDLY stolen by a house help from Kenya a week ago.”

Ah, this treacherous language called English!