[kictanet] Declining English grammar in our Newsprint

[Phares Kariuki]

We are not taught the fundamentals. I have been trying to avoid pointing out
a basic grammatical error many are making on this list, but I'll do so
anyway. In English and most other Latin based languages proper nouns are
capitalized. Many on this list have their names in outgoing emails without
capitalizing.  Why am I pointing this out? We all went through one education
system. For you to gained admission into a public university, you needed to
have achieved at least a mean grade of B. If we are making the same mistakes
the journalists are making, how can we take the high road? If we
purposefully chose to ignore the rules of grammar as we were done with our
'high school' education, then it means that there is a fundamental problem
with our education system (we never had to apply our knowledge of English,
so we are really studying for the sake of the grade and not the knowledge).

It's the same with Swahili, Physics (e.g. we all know that Kenyan drivers
are constantly speeding, even with vehicles that were not built for speed.
In high school, we are taught that breaking distance is proportional to the
*square* of the speed, which means that it increases out of proportion to
the increase in speed), but we disregard this. We all sang the national
anthem at least twice per week, for all twelve years of our primary and
tertiary education, yet we stutter if we are asked to recite it.

The crisis of our education system is that people don't value the skill as
much as they value recognition for the skill. It does not matter whether or
not you can actually code, what matters is that you have a certificate that
says  you can. It's apparent in the technology space today. People have to
earn their stripes, papers no longer really matter. The 'Mwakenya' is the
standard in University exam rooms. And the situation is only getting worse.
We need to find ways of integrating what people learn with day to day life.
If we don't, we will keep having this tragedy of people getting knowledge
for the sake of the certificate and not bothering to find out why they are
learning that.

A further illustration, I once spoke to a university student who mentioned
that he was doing Oracle Certification 'because he heard that it has money'.
My problem with his thinking was that he had no clue what products Oracle
was dealing in, he was going to do any certification available, which means,
he might have ended up certifying in a field he did not like (Oracle has
Enterprise Hardware/Software/Cloud Services) and land on a job he does not
want, but one that pays well.

On Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 2:43 PM, luke mulunda <lmulunda at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Marsh,
> My brain must have been infested with cobwebs.
>
> Anyhow, that's what we are talking about: where are the guys (like you) to
> follow through and clean up the mess before it gets to the press? And it's
> not just the daily newspapers, Weeklies, and even monthy publications. I
> have been reading a book authored and published locally and you can see the
> concern.
>
> <em style="background-color:rgb(0, 0, 191);"><strong><font size="3"><span
> style="text-decoration:underline;">WWW.SMARTBIZAFRICA.COM
> Africa's No.1 Online Business Magazine
> ...For Investors, Entrepreneurs, Managers, Marketers, CEOs, IT Experts, HR
> & Finance Managers and Students.... Plus Stocks and Business News and Career
> Guidance</span></font></strong></em><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="
> http://www.smartbizafrica.com/"></a>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Macharia Gaitho <mgaitho at ke.nationmedia.com>
> *To:* luke mulunda <lmulunda at yahoo.com>
>
> *Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
> *Sent:* Monday, October 10, 2011 1:19 PM
> *Subject:* RE: [kictanet] Declining English grammar in our Newsprint
>
>   Luke,
> the Ugandan leader was ‘Amin’, not ‘Amini’.
>
> I would suppose the unnamed ‘he’  was killed at dawn, not ‘down’.
>
> Kindest regards
>
>
>
>  *From:* kictanet-bounces+mgaitho=nation.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke[mailto:
> kictanet-bounces+mgaitho=nation.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke] *On Behalf Of
> *luke mulunda
> *Sent:* Monday, October 10, 2011 10:37 AM
> *To:* Macharia Gaitho
>
> *Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
> *Subject:* Re: [kictanet] Declining English grammar in our Newsprint
>
>  Hi all,
>  I would personally blame it on cost-cutting. We have journalism and
> English experts in newsrooms, but they have too much on their hands to spot
> the most obvious and embarrassing mistakes in our publications.
>
>  Mistakes can be costly. Remember during Amini's time in Uganda, the
> dictator had criticised a female MP, and so the paper splashed the following
> morning "Amini rapes MP" when he meant "RAPS". I hear, he was killed at down
> as he brushed his teeth in his house.
>
>
>  LUKE M
>
>
>  <em style="background-color:rgb(0, 0, 191);"><strong><font size="3"><span
> style="text-decoration:underline;">WWW.SMARTBIZAFRICA.COM
> Africa's No.1 Online Business Magazine
> ...For Investors, Entrepreneurs, Managers, Marketers, CEOs, IT Experts, HR
> & Finance Managers and Students.... Plus Stocks and Business News and Career
> Guidance</span></font></strong></em><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="
> http://www.smartbizafrica.com/"></a>
>
>   ------------------------------
>  *From:* Catherine Adeya <elizaslider at yahoo.com>
> *To:* luke <lmulunda at yahoo.com>
> *Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
> *Sent:* Monday, October 10, 2011 10:18 AM
> *Subject:* Re: [kictanet] Declining English grammar in our Newsprint
>   James,
>  The PS has a point and I am not disputing yours either but I would simply
> respond to your email below that generalizations is what has got us where we
> are. Specificity can help more.....
>
>  Nyaki
>
>   ------------------------------
>  *From:* james ratemo <jratemo at gmail.com>
> *To:* elizaslider at yahoo.com
> *Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
> *Sent:* Tuesday, October 4, 2011 11:16 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [kictanet] Declining English grammar in our Newsprint
>  Bwana PS what are you insinuating? We open our newsrooms fro the so
> called English majors? Some of them are in the newsrooms already...maybe
> they are sleeping on the job...my opinion
>  On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 11:11 PM, <bitange at jambo.co.ke> wrote:
> All of today's newspapers had several grammatical errors.  At this time and
> age of ICT, is it not too embarrasing to have such errors?  We have
>  thousands of English majors without jobs.  It is time for media to be
> thorough in what they do by utilizing our many graduates without jobs.  As a
> Kenyan I get embarrased to see such errors.
>
> Ndemo.
>
>
>
>
> Sent from my BlackBerry®
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Grace Githaiga <ggithaiga at hotmail.com>
> Sender: kictanet-bounces+bitange=jambo.co.ke at lists.kictanet.or.ke
> Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2011 13:32:57
> To: <bitange at jambo.co.ke>
> Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions<kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke>
> Subject: [kictanet] GSMA: Calls will remain high between African countries
>
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> --
> James Ratemo
> Online Sub-editor/ICT reporter
> Nation Media Group,
> P.O Box 49010-00100,
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-- 
With Regards,

Phares Kariuki

| T: +254 720 406 093 | E: pkariuki at gmail.com | Twitter: kaboro | Skype:
kariukiphares | B: http://www.kaboro.com/ |
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