You don’t feed him a cake; you feed him WITH a cake

In the Friday, February 4 edition of the tabloid closely associated with this columnist, there is a story entitled, ‘Land dispute leaves Moshi teacher homeless’. It is a heartrending account of an educator whose house, in which he and his family lived for over two decades, was razed. The teacher alleges the house was demolished by a lawyer—his lawyer!

Our Kilimanjaro-based colleague reports: “The teacher, who has stayed in the house for over 24 years, is currently SLEEPING OUTSIDE with his family which LEAVES him and the rest TO vulnerable security and health situations.”

The house, according to the story is no longer there—the lawyer demolished it. Which is why “sleeping outside” sounds odd, for one is likely to ask: outside what? Sleeping outside smacks of literal translation from Kiswahili: analala nje. In English, however, we say: sleeping IN THE OPEN.

And then, if we were to rewrite the second half of the sentence, we would do it thus: “…which RENDERS (not leaves) him and his family VULNERABLE (not to vulnerable) to security and health HAZARDS (not situations). Alternatively she could have written: “…which EXPOSES him and his family TO security and health HAZARDS.”

In Para 6, the scribbler purports to quote the suffering teacher and writes: “We asked him why should we give you a quarter of an acre when we were paying you during the case PRECEDING?”

Case preceding? Nope! “Preceding” is not a noun as the scribbler seems to think; it’s an adjective that means coming before something. Like, we talk of the preceding chapter. Our colleague, we believe, had in mind the word PROCEEDINGS.

On Page 4 of the above-cited edition, there is a story of an exemplary Tanzanian lady, one Ms JM. Our scribbling colleague purports to quote her as saying: “My father used to encourage me that I could actually do well in science like ANY OTHER man…”

I have been hoping I am winning the war against the misguided use of “another”—and now…here comes “any other”! If Ms JM indeed said, “I,…like ‘any other man’”, the suggestion is that she is a man. No way! What she said, I can swear, is this: “My father used to encourage me that I could actually do well in science like ANY (not ‘any other’) man…” Duh!

Still on Saturday, February 5. Page 2 of Bongo’s senior-most broadsheet has an article with the headline, ‘Union, adherence to principles keep CCM strong, analysts.’ Let me fuss a little and say this: the comma before “analysts” is misplaced. In its place there should be either a dash ( - ) or a colon which in journalese stand for SAY/SAYS. It is also accepted that on headlines, a comma can be used in the place of the conjunction “and”.

Now in Column 4 of the article, there is a sentence that reads: “According to Mr Mohamed, ASP and TANU cooperated in many fronts in advocating FOR the formation of the United States of Africa.”

The scribbler uses the expression “advocates for” at least twice in the article, which means he is certain that is okay. However, there is a problem. You ADVOCATE something/things; you do not advocate “for” something/things.

On the same day (Saturday, February 5), Page 3 of Bongo’s huge and colourful broadsheet carried a photo whose caption reads: “Former Prime Minister Frederick Sumaye FEEDS Manyara regional commissioner Charles Mkongoro Nyerere a PIECE of cake at a CCM 45th birth anniversary ceremony held on Thursday.”

Hello! You don’t feed somebody something (like we say in Kiswahili “amlisha Bwana Fulani this or that); you feed him WITH something. It means, the caption should have read: “Former Prime Minister…FEEDS Manyara Regional Commissioner….WITH a piece of cake at a CCM 45th birth anniversary ceremony held on Thursday.”

Ah, this treacherous language called English!