Hello, This debate keeps getting interesting with time especially when those castigating the poor grammar done by others get caught committing the same sin they are trying to uproot. Close to 90% of the posts that have come stand guilty of one or two counts of grammatical crimes. All the same we might argue that this forum is not a newspaper and hence escape without injuries. But whether we admit it or not, there is a problem that pertains to the use of the queen's language not just within the newspaper circles but across the board. From a general perspective I have discovered that very few of our college students can express themselves in English without punctuating their statements with the "as in" and "you know" phrases at every pause. So, what could be the real issue? When I was growing up in the village, I attended a primary school where the English subject was taught by two teachers with fundamentally opposing characteristics. One of the teachers who I initially admired taught us the queens language in vernacular. When he attempted to use the official language, he simply replaced the mother tongue with English words ending up with chaotic statements like "come here both of you two naughty boys, can you sleep down so that I beat you immediately"... and so on. The other teacher, a certain Mr Macharia was a stickler to proper spelling, pronunciation, intonation and even vocal chord movements. He was very emphatic against reasoning in mother-tongue if one had the intention of conveying the message in English. At the early stages I found him too strict but over time I was able to adjust and I believe since then I do speak some thing close to English whenever I want to. I still revere him to date. The point is that no matter how much we get disillusioned the cure lies at the basic levels of learning. As they say the rules of language are internalized in the early years of life. Were it not for the intervention of Mr. Macharia, you can rest assured that I would have done this post in a mother-tongue concoction and maybe you would have needed somebody to do the translation. For those within my age and beyond who never had the luxury of such tutorship as I received and may want to become editors in the language, I feel sorry that age may not be very kind after a certain thresh-hold. But you can use this little advise to caution the younger ones within your reach who may possibly keep the newsprint industry going when the likes of Philip Ochieng and Bw. Gaitho have left the ring. Kamotho On Tue, Oct 11, 2011 at 9:19 AM, Andrea Bohnstedt < andrea.bohnstedt@ratio-magazine.com> wrote:
'Morgage' in a big fat headline, too.
More wonderful internet things: 'spelt' looked odd to me for a second, so I looked it up. 'spelled' and 'spelt' can be used interchangeably according to this page (and several other sources): http://www.grammarist.com/spelling/spelled-spelt/
The website also has useful style advice and a bunch of fun quizzes on commonly confused words, British vs American English, homophones and irregular plural nouns: http://www.grammarist.com/grammarist-quizzes/
On 11 October 2011 18:47, luke mulunda <lmulunda@yahoo.com> wrote:
That skill that doesn't come with English degree is "meticulous eye for detail." Today I saw "mortgage" spelt as "morgage" is a very serious business magazine.
<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:* robert yawe <robertyawe@yahoo.co.uk> *To:* luke <lmulunda@yahoo.com>
*Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> *Sent:* Tuesday, October 11, 2011 5:12 PM
*Subject:* Re: [kictanet] Declining English grammar in our Newsprint
Hi Andrea,
You got me on that one, it was meant to be digressing.
Regards
PS. Thanks for the correction
Robert Yawe KAY System Technologies Ltd Phoenix House, 6th Floor P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200 Kenya
Tel: +254722511225, +254202010696 ------------------------------ *From:* Andrea Bohnstedt <andrea.bohnstedt@ratio-magazine.com> *To:* robert yawe <robertyawe@yahoo.co.uk> *Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> *Sent:* Tuesday, 11 October 2011, 16:08 *Subject:* Re: [kictanet] Declining English grammar in our Newsprint
Robert,
I don't think I said that a jobless graduate is inferior - a jobless graduate is just jobless. That, in itself, is not necessarily a sign of qualification or lack of qualification.
Outsourcing services or not is a different debate. You outsource because others can deliver a specific service cheaper and better than you can within your company. Depends.
All I'm saying is: it takes more than being an English graduate (jobless or employed) to be a copy editor. Copy editing involves a specific skill set that doesn't come with an English degree.
I'd also point out (before Mr Gaitho gets there) that 'you are disgracing' isn't a proper sentence. Am I disgraceful? Or digressing? Or am I disgracing something or someone? :)
Andrea
On 11 October 2011 15:17, robert yawe <robertyawe@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
Andrea,
You are disgracing, what I was responding to was your issue that suggested that a jobless graduate was inferior to an employed one.
I concur with you on the issue of having the senior editors educate the newbies, what could be done in my outsourcing model would be to deduct a certain amount for every error picked up further ahead in the chain,
"hit where it hurts most"
Many people who jumped on the initial outsourcing "gravy train" got shut-down due to the high costs of the errors they made when transcribing, some ended up receiving invoices instead of cheques.
Regards
Robert Yawe KAY System Technologies Ltd Phoenix House, 6th Floor P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200 Kenya
Tel: +254722511225, +254202010696 ------------------------------ *From:* Andrea Bohnstedt <andrea.bohnstedt@ratio-magazine.com> *To:* robert yawe <robertyawe@yahoo.co.uk>
*Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> *Sent:* Tuesday, 11 October 2011, 10:56
*Subject:* Re: [kictanet] Declining English grammar in our Newsprint
Robert,
Whether you have your editing outsourced or not is mainly a questions of how you structure the contracts - do you have people on the payroll, or do you have them work as freelancer. Or you could have them on the payroll, but have them work online, so they can work anywhere and don't need to be physically present in the office.
However, that's secondary to quality, although I'd argue that for key functions, it'd be more useful to have them on payroll and in the office. A lot of mistakes occur again and again, so if I were in charge of cleaning up copy (and I was milimetres away from applying for that position with the Star), I'd try to develop an approach that would teach the journalists to avoid them. I'd hunt down anyone who still uses 'greenbuck' and 'curving a niche' and who uses 'adorn' wrongly.
My point is: 'English graduate' in itself is not a qualification for good copy editing. That requires a lot more than an English degree. It's entirely possible that someone with an English degree makes for a good copy editor, but it requires a lot more than that.
Andrea
On 11 October 2011 09:36, robert yawe <robertyawe@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
Hi Andrea,
What is outsourcing if not sending out what has been standardised, as some have mentioned that it is becoming too expensive to hire editors why not outsource the same.
A jobless language graduate is no different from an employed language graduate, the graduate is jobless because the media houses cannot afford to pay them to sit in the office to work so why not apply technology.
That graduate sitting in Chepalungu can go to Pasha centre every evening after tending the firm or teaching at the local primary school log onto the web and proof read articles due for publishing. At 500/- per article the media house will spend 15,000/-, no pension or medical expenses, no desk space required, no tea at 10 and 4, one less supervisor, our food security will have moved a step forward, the slums in Nairobi will grow that much slower, the local school will have another teacher thus reducing the teacher/student ratio and last and least you and I will be less stressed by the mediocrity that has manifested in the media.
"Think global but act local"
Robert Yawe KAY System Technologies Ltd Phoenix House, 6th Floor P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200 Kenya
Tel: +254722511225, +254202010696 ------------------------------ *From:* Andrea Bohnstedt <andrea.bohnstedt@ratio-magazine.com> *To:* robertyawe@yahoo.co.uk
*Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> *Sent:* Monday, 10 October 2011, 10:41
*Subject:* Re: [kictanet] Declining English grammar in our Newsprint
What Catherine said. Editing, proofreading, subbing require skill and experience and knowledge - it's *not* something you can just farm out to jobless graduates.
On 10 October 2011 10:16, Catherine Adeya <elizaslider@yahoo.com> wrote:
I think there is a wrong impression that a Journalism graduate is best suited to edit a paper. You may be better off with an English major graduate, Linguistics graduate and Information Sciences (Publishing Major) graduate. The IS course at MU had a renowned editing course in the '80s with the late Jonathan Kariara. I do not know how they are doing now. I remember him teaching an editing class and emphasizing the importance of good grammar, good English and simplicity especially when communicating to the wider market. I remember "Class, it is easier to say "walk" rather than "perambulate" even though they mean the same thing. He gave an example of certain words that you must be extremely careful about when editing...they are words that you must counter-check and DO NOT AT ANY COST rely on your computer (the class already had experience in this).
Let me give you an example of one of those words and forgive me as I have no intention to be vulgar. Two years ago I was in Dar and I was reading their top local paper. The heading in one of the lead stories was 'President opens a Pubic library'......I can't remember whether it was a library or what but you know the word I am referring to. I actually drew the attention of someone I knew to this major error and she promised to get in touch with the editor. My point is such words on a spell-checker will be correct, it requires as well trained eye to still sweep over the document and pick words like this. Even in the the Kenyan case we lack this seriously yet the qualified people are there. I am glad this topic has come up because sometimes I just put the paper aside as I am horrified at the level of grammar and editorial mistakes. The same happens with the news that is scrolled during News broadcasts....and while I am at that... some of the Opinion questions are SO ABSURD and even worse they are grammatically wrong...wrong...wrong....
Enough said....
Nyaki
------------------------------ *From:* Victor Bwire <victor@article19.org> *To:* elizaslider@yahoo.com
*Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> *Sent:* Tuesday, October 4, 2011 11:29 PM
*Subject:* Re: [kictanet] Declining English grammar in our Newsprint
Infact it is the ICT use that is the cause of the problem- given the little ICT literacy by some of our newsrooms- most of our sub editors learn computer by on job-rarely able to master command of the computer functions- including grammer, spell checks-it will continue happening
Previously, we used to print hard copies of the articles for editing manually with red pens- thus very few mistakes- but now
Many of journalism courses do not include introduction to computer lessons- so how will the graduates know how to use them
Who regulates journalism training or draws the course or approves the same in the country anyway- if you even happen to see some course outlines offered in some of the colleges and universities offering journalism including Government ones- you will feel sorry
________________________________ From: kictanet-bounces+victor=article19.org@lists.kictanet.or.ke[kictanet-bounces+victor= article19.org@lists.kictanet.or.ke] on behalf of james ratemo [ jratemo@gmail.com] Sent: 04 October 2011 21:16 To: Victor Bwire Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions 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@jambo.co.ke<mailto: bitange@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®
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Sender: kictanet-bounces+bitange=jambo.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto: jambo.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke> Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2011 13:32:57 To: <bitange@jambo.co.ke<mailto:bitange@jambo.co.ke>> Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions<kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke<mailto: kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke>> Subject: [kictanet] GSMA: Calls will remain high between African countries
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