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by
Garry Chirwa, 13 June 2006
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05:53:58
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Slip of the tongue
For a long time, people have had pleasure in scoffing at some of our local soccer stars who struggle to communicate in the Queen’s language.
I have also written on this column about an incident which I remember so fondly when I travelled with the Flames to Lesotho some time back.
One of the Flames’ key defenders (name withheld) scored an own goal through a deflection and when one of the journalists from Lesotho asked him for a comment on how it happened, he said ‘...well the ball just assaulted me and went into the net.’
There was also a time when I travelled to Windhoek, Namibia, with the national team (I am sure Gracian Tukula still remembers this funny incident). As we were relaxing by the pool side, one of the players asked ‘kodi mankhwala a ma pick-up ndi chiyani?’ We later learnt that he wanted a remedy for hiccups.
And just a few days ago, there were jokes that did rounds on the internet about our players’ attempts at the English language but the one that I liked most was when one of the senior players was asked about the secret on his fitness and the response was: ‘In the morning I get up and I run away.’
I was however surprised recently to note that it is not only football players who ram into the Queen’s language. Just a couple of weeks ago, one political heavyweight from the Centre who is popularly known as ‘Change Golo’, was overheard accusing opposition members of wasting time ‘fingering government’.
Apparently what he meant was that the opposition spends a lot of time pointing fingers at the government. And only last week, Deputy Minister of Irrigation and Water Development Frank Mwenefumbo went to town on fellow parliamentarian Gerald Mponda on grammar basics, accusing him of failing to construct proper English sentences.
There are also times when the ‘Iron Lady’ runs into potholes of grammar, but in the end we politely say it was ‘just a slip of the tongue’. Do we still have those adult literacy classes (sukulu za Kwacha?) I just want to know.
—Feedback:garrychirwa@yahoo.co.uk |
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