You don’t train a person ABOUT things; instead you train him or her IN them

There are a couple of beautiful gems I failed to share in last Friday’s edition, which is why I’ll skip my usual introductory blah-blah and move straight to delivering them—and much more. Here we go…

On Page 2 of March 2 of Bongo’s senior-most broadsheet, there’s a story entitled, ‘Government commits to expand dialysis services’. The scribbler, seemingly reporting on what a senior medic said during an occasion to mark World Kidney Day, wrote the following:

“He said of the 325 patients who UNDERGONE kidney transplant, 93 of them received the service within the country IN WHICH 67 of them were treated at Muhimbili…”

There are issues with the use of words that I have capitalised, now allow me skip explanations and simply do a rewrite and undo the damage:

“He said of the 325 patients who UNDERWENT (not undergone) kidney transplant, 93 of them received the service within the country AND (not in which) 67 of them were treated at Muhimbili…”

On Page 20 of the same edition, there is story in which a sports scribbler purports to quote the Simba SC coach Pablo Franco Martin and writes: “We defended many corners ON THE day; if one team is good at something, try to AVOID them FROM doing such a thing.”

Hello; you don’t avoid someone from doing something; you STOP them from doing it. And what is more, Simba defended many corners on THAT (not on the) DAY.

Come Saturday, March 19 and Bongo’s colourful and huge broadsheet had this story on Page 3: ‘Training to equip women with more essential leadership skills’. The intro for went thus:

“The association of Tanzania Employers has launched AN 8th cohort of the Female Future Programme which is aimed to get more women into management positions…”

Launched “an eighth” cohort? The use of the indefinite article “an” gives the impression that there are several 8th cohorts, but that cannot be! Our colleague, I am certain, intended say THE 8th Cohort.

The Friday, March 18 of the tabloid closely associated with this columnist ran a story with the headline, ‘FCC warns over cooking oil, sugar price fixing’. In this one, the scribbler writes in Para 8:

“However, one of the major sugar manufacturers, Kilombero Sugar Company Ltd, said there are no grounds to hike prices because THE CURRENT there is enough supply…”

Because “the current” there is enough supply? It doesn’t make, sense, does it? I believe our scribbling colleague wished to say “because CURRENTLY, there is enough supply.”

On the same page, there is another story with the headline, ‘Programme to help improve teachers’ skills and welfare’. At the middle of Para 2, the scribbler penned the following:

A University of Dar es Salaam researcher Dr Richard Shukia noted THAT, “teachers are trained ABOUT the new curriculum but they have their reservations and low self-efficacy.”

There are three challenges in the above sentence. One, bad punctuation; two, wrong conjunction and three, wrong preposition. I will explain. If you have to retain “A” at the beginning of the cited sentence, you need to put a comma after Dar es Salaam another after “Shukia”. And then, you don’t need the conjunction “that” and a comma to precede your quotation and of course—contrary to popular misconception— the quoted sentence should start with a capital letter! Furthermore, you don’t train anyone “about” something. You train them IN something.

Having thus explained, here is my rewrite:

“A University of Dar es Salaam researcher, Dr Richard Shukia, noted: Teachers are trained IN the new curriculum but they have their reservations and low self-efficacy.”

Now if you dislike having many punctuation in a single sentence irritable, you may simply give the same information this way: “University of Dar es Salaam researcher Dr Richard Shukia noted that teachers are trained IN the new curriculum but they have their reservations…”

Ah, this treacherous language called English!