KENYA has a new President in the person
of Uhuru Kenyatta. The Custodian (9 April) had this front page feature
on the event that took place on 9th April, titled: “Raila, Kalonzo
retreat to SA as Uhuru in ‘invested’”.
OK we could debate this but was Uhuru
“invested”? The meaning of “invest” that is close to the Uhuru
Presidential investiture is the phrasal verb “invest with” which means
to officially give someone power to do something. Therefore, I would
have hesitated to say Uhuru was invested, unless I described the event
further by saying: “Uhuru was invested with power ……”.
It would have been better to use the
more common vocabulary: “Uhuru Kenyatta was sworn in as Kenya’s
President”. Presidential contestant, Raila Odinga (mtani), and his
running mate did not attend the ceremony since they are reported to have
taken: “a flight to South Africa with their families” and were
“expected back in the country tomorrow a day after Uhuru’s coronation”.
Again I would have hesitated to use the
noun “coronation” in these circumstances; for, my Longman Dictionary of
Contemporary English defines coronation as “the ceremony at which
someone is officially made king or queen”. Yea? “A ceremony at which
someone is officially made king or queen”. Now we ask ourselves: “Was
Uhuru officially made king? No. Kings do not go through elections.
They are usually born. Some five years
from now, Uhuru will be facing an election. Therefore, it is safe to say
that the ceremony at which he was sworn in as Kenya’s President was not
a “coronation”. Why did Raila and his principals not attend the
swearing- in ceremony? According to the paper: “Sources say Raila and
Kalonzo had been ‘prevailed’ by CORD MPs ‘to skip’ the swearing in
ceremony….” Raila and Kalonzo were not prevailed by CORD MPs. They were
“prevailed upon” by their MPs.
“To prevail on” or “prevail upon” means
to persuade someone to do or not do something. Moreover I do not think
Raila and Co “skipped: the swearing in ceremony”. This would mean, they
had a schedule, and then found that they were running out of time for
example and decided to leave out this particular activity.
In real life however, they deliberately
decided not to attend. My choice vocabulary would be: “they boycotted
the swearing in ceremony”. Having been prevailed upon by their MPs:
“they bought the idea saying attending Uhuru’s inauguration will be
tantamount to endorsing a regime whose ‘ascend’ to power they
disputed……”. Now “ascend” is a verb when what we need in this sentence
is a noun. There are many societies which mix up “nd” and “nt”, and it
is possible that the writer of this news item comes from such a
community. It is “ascent” to power not “ascend” to power.
*****
While Kenyans are celebrating the
swearing in of their 4th President, Tanzania is trying to solve the jinx
of who should slaughter certain animals for public consumption. A
prominent businessman has come up to declare that “Fighting over animal
slaughtering is shameful” (Custodian 9th April, p. 2). This disagreement
has already resulted into physical clashes and deaths: “The clashes
resulted in the beheading of Pastor Mathayo Machila and injuries to
several others besides causing massive significant damage to property”.
We want to point out two areas of
concern with the sentence on the beheading of the Pastor. One, when the
writer talks of “injuries to several others”, it was necessary to be
clear whether these “several others” were Pastors or not. Since it is
only one Pastor who was beheaded, the sentence needed to be rewritten.
Besides, it is not possible to cause “massive” damage to property which
is not significant. Thus to say “massive significant” damage to property
is to make unnecessary overemphasis.
A rewrite would read something like:
“The clashes resulted in the beheading of Pastor Mathayo Machila and
injuries to several other people, besides causing extensive damage to
property”.
*****
We now make a quick hop to Makerere
University in Kampala Uganda, where we are given insights into what new
university entrants go through. This is in an article titled: “Freshers
and their struggle to fit in” (East African Business Weekly, April 8-14,
p. 17). One fresher who was interviewed had this to say: “I remember
fear grasping through me when I first ‘stepped foot’ at campus”.
“Stepped foot on campus?”
We disagree. The writer had the choice
of either saying “set foot on campus”, or, “stepped on campus”, but not
“stepped foot on campus”. Did fear “grasp” through this fresher? We
would have gone for a simple word: “Fear ran through me”. Our rewrite
would run something like this: “I remember fear running through me when I
first set foot at the campus”.
The fresher is warned: “many of the
students have failed to graduate from campus as a result of
misallocating their time by wasting it on misleading events such as
parties. They concentrate more on the socializing part of university
life rather than ‘concentrating more’ on their academics and and perhaps
balancing the two may be the best option and perhaps ‘by balancing the
two’ they will realize success, especially during the first year of
universities and it all depends on sense of balance”. The paragraph
above has too many repetitions, and I leave it you to think of a
rewrite. All the best for President Uhuru Kenyatta.
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