Media are always wrong on use of the word ‘former’
What you need to know:
- But knowledge is socially useful only if the individual owner can pass it on to other individuals. And, in verbal communication, logic is its essence.
Language is the specific means of communication of homo sapiens sapiens, the evolutionary biologist’s term for our species.
In that term, please note the double use of the word sapiens, by which the evolutionist seeks to remind you that a certain other species — the bonobo chimp — is also sapient (though to a lesser degree than is the human species).
The apparent claim is that, if the bonobo is sapient, then the human animal is doubly sapient.
Collins defines the English adjective sapient as “…having great wisdom or sound judgment…” Compared with all other species on earth, humans certainly have that gift.
However, if the human world’s political leaders are included in that definition — if it includes Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte — then I blow a raspberry at the claim to sapience by the world’s political leaders.
The English adjective sapient comes from the Latin verb sapere, which meant to know something (especially by means of tasting it).
That is perhaps the origin of the English saying that the pudding can be proved only by eating it.
In another direction, sapere is also the root of the French verb savoir (“to know”).
But knowledge is socially useful only if the individual owner can pass it on to other individuals. And, in verbal communication, logic is its essence.
If we did not use words logically, members of any language community would never understand one another and chaos would be ineluctable.
What, then, can we collectively do to force Kenya’s communication media to use for instance, the word “former” logically?
Daniel arap Moi became “former President” only when Mwai Kibaki replaced him in 2005.
Yet, in captions, our newspapers keep referring to Mr Moi as “former President” even concerning events over which he presided long before he retired into “formerliness”.
HOW TO USE 'FORMER'
Any smattering of logic should tell our newspaper reporters and sub-editors that, depending on the context, whenever you use the term “former President” to describe, say, Mr Moi in any picture taken when he still occupied State House, you are misinforming your readers.
Only when he officially decamped from State House did Mr Moi become “former president”.
Even today he remains “President Moi” as long as, in your sentence, the reference is to anything he did or was done to him when he still occupied State House between 1978 and 2005.
This goes for all other individuals who have occupied that august house.
Similarly, you cannot say that a “former President inaugurated the Kenyatta Conference Centre.”
Why not? Because it was as President — not as former President — that Mzee Kenyatta inaugurated that building.
Yet, because our Johnnies-come-lately into the world of mediated communication perennially fail to tame English, even an everyday word like former causes us a deadly deal of trouble.
Mr Moi is a former President only because he served as president during a time gone by.
Similarly, we should describe Mwai Kibaki as former President only when the relevant event took place when he still occupied the official home of Kenya’s serving president.
