As journalists, we cheat readers whenever we use misuse language

From a flower on page 3 of The Daily Nation of January 17, one plucked the following sepal: “When her family left for Australia at a time when they and the country were facing a difficult period, not much had prepared Lucy Gichuhi for her life right now…” In that statement, I italicise the phrase which includes the term “the country” because it contained a serious language problem.

Although it was interesting, the statement raised one question. In that context, which country did the writer have in mind when he or she used the phrase “the country”? Was he or she referring to Kenya or Australia? What would an Australian tourist, say, have understood from such information if he or she had picked up a copy of your newspaper at, say, Nanyuki, Shimo la Tewa or Siaya that morning?

The question stared at you like Medusa’s face. In that construction of language, what could the words “the country” mean — Australia or Kenya? As far as grammar is concerned, Australia, not Kenya, can be the only answer.

READERS

That is why the statement will have baffled many otherwise intelligent readers, especially those arriving in Kenya for the first time that morning.

For if, in the context, “Australia” was “the country” concerned, then the term “Kenya” would have become the puzzle. However, the attentive reader will, nevertheless, have been obliged to pose one very simple question: How could it be Kenya when the writer had already named “Australia” as the grammatical subject of his or her statement?

Many of East Africa’s English-language journalists pose that fundamental question again and again. Please do remember that communication is what your newspaper is in the marketplace to sell and that, therefore, whenever you make a statement that poses such a question in any reader’s mind, you have failed to communicate with that reader.

Moreover, you might have caused the knowledgeable reader to doubt your knowledge of the language in which you are writing. Through misuse of that language, you have potentially undermined your own name as a writer with a mastery of the language of your career. Many of your readers may realise that, by buying copies of your newspaper, they are being cheated out of their extremely hard-earned money.

POOR READERS

In other words, whenever you behave like that — through professional inability ­— you are resorting to conman-ship to impoverish many of your own already extremely poor readers. Please remember, however, that communication of events and other information to every buyer of your newspaper (no matter how educated) is the stated reason that your company was launched into the East African marketplace quite a few decades ago.

Thus every time you fail to communicate properly with any reader, you have failed your investors in one of their own stated investment aims in East Africa, namely, to make money by selling genuine social knowledge to East Africans.

Philip Ochieng is a retired journalist. [email protected]