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Is the wrong use of language a
generational malaise?
A GNA Feature by Boakye-Dankwa Boadi
Accra , Aug. 27, Ghanadot/GNA – Our Elders say as long as we continue
to have heads so long would we continue to wear hats. Indeed
we have to continuously strive for perfection in every
sphere of endeavour.
It is, therefore, imperative for journalists not to relent
in the effort to get it right always - both in content and
the language.
The recent criticism about language abuse in the Ghanaian
media should be taken to be a call to perfection rather than
an ignominious attack calculated to ridicule journalists.
This became more apparent after this Writer had taken a few
minutes out of his rather tight schedule to check on
language use by British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and
Reuters on their respective websites on Monday August 27
2007.
The findings reminded this Writer of the story of the
adulterous woman in one of the villages, who allowed access
to every man that proposed to her. The story is told that a
man called Ewiase was one of her regular visitors and when
he went on one of his usual visits there was a knock on the
door by the man of the house. The woman quickly asked him to
get under the bed, where he found the Chief of the village
also hiding.
The story continues that the husband sat on the bed and
started conversing with the wife. In the course of the
conversation the man exclaimed “Ei Ewiase!” Ewiase, who was
under the bed, thought that he had been found out and
shouted back: “I am not here alone, the Chief is also here!”
And so it happened that when this Writer checked the
websites he found the following on the bbc.co.uk website:
“Star-struck policeman in trouble for hugging jailed
Bollywood icon.”
One does not have to tell you
that the word “Bollywood” should have been “Hollywood”. This
type of mistake, which is referred to as “typo” occurs very
often because journalists always write under pressure.
Another one was: “France ready to apologise to Iraq. French
Foreign Minister Bernard Koucher has offered to apologise to
Iraq if he had meddled in its affairs. The statement comes a
day after Iraqi Prime Minister Nuli Maliki demanded an
official apology because Mr Koucher had suggested he
resign.” The correct usage should have been “resigned” or if
the reporter wanted to use journalese, could have said
“resigns” which is the third person singular.
There was also this one: “Mr Warner said the Senate would
wait for next month’s update on US troop surge, supposed
give the Iraqi government extra time to make political
progress before making any moves. Here the “to” after
“supposed” was missing.
Again, there was this one: “Mr Nukaga, a former defence
minister, takes on the role of finance minister, while Mr
Komura, a former foreign minister, replace Yuri Koike as
defence minister. The “replace” should have been “replaces”.
Reuters also got one of its headlines wrong but the lead was
correct. It wrote in the headline: “Attorney General Alberto
Gonzales resigned from office, ending a controversial tenure
as chief law enforcement office. It, however, got the word
“officer” correct in the lead.
So it is not only the Ghanaian media that are awash with
errors in the use of the English Language even the owners of
the Language sometimes make mistakes.
This is not to say that one should allow such mistakes but
the import here is that we should not be too terse when
commenting on these mistakes. For instance when this Writer
made a typo and wrote “lunched a vitriolic attack” in a
previous article on language use instead of “launched a
vitriolic attack” the comments made on the ghanaweb.com were
in a rather bad taste though the error had been detected
after the item was sent and a correction had been effected.
It was very strange that people whose standard of English
was at the junior secondary school level also attempted to
correct this Writer. One wrote: “At least one of your
supposed corrections were wrong... It should have read: He
bought some agriculturAL inputs
(NOT agriculture inputs). A case of the blind leading the
blind!”
This is disaster. “one were wrong “ a case of the pot
calling the kettle black.
However, a good teacher as this Writer has been since 1971
when he taught at Kumasi High School, he had the time to
teach him that there are adjectival nouns.
He explained that a noun can work after another noun as a
modifier or an appositive.
A noun can work before another noun as a modifier.
A noun can work as a modifier of an adjective or verb.
The following sentences are correct :
1. John Mensah works at the Agriculture Ministry. Here we
have a noun modifying another noun.
2. He attended the Agriculture College at Kwadaso.
3. They have established a new Agriculture Station in the
Upper East Region to carry out research into Savannah crops.
4. He bought a number of agriculture inputs.
5. The agriculture inputs included fertilizer and
pesticides”
If you learnt something new after reading this piece, then
the time spent was used profitably.
GNA
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