‘braking’, not ‘breaking’ distance.
From: kictanet-bounces+mgaitho=nation.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke [mailto:kictanet-bounces+mgaitho=nation.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of Phares Kariuki
Sent: Monday, October 10, 2011 4:09 PM
To: Macharia Gaitho
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Declining English grammar in our Newsprint
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@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.
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From: Macharia Gaitho <mgaitho@ke.nationmedia.com>
To: luke mulunda <lmulunda@yahoo.com>
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke>Sent: Monday, October 10, 2011 1:19 PM
Subject: RE: [kictanet] Declining English grammar in our NewsprintLuke,
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@lists.kictanet.or.ke [mailto:kictanet-bounces+mgaitho=nation.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke] On Behalf Of luke mulunda
Sent: Monday, October 10, 2011 10:37 AM
To: Macharia Gaitho
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy DiscussionsSubject: 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@yahoo.com>
To: luke <lmulunda@yahoo.com>
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Sent: Monday, October 10, 2011 10:18 AM
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Declining English grammar in our NewsprintJames,
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@gmail.com>
To: elizaslider@yahoo.com
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Sent: Tuesday, October 4, 2011 11:16 PM
Subject: Re: [kictanet] Declining English grammar in our NewsprintBwana 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> 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@hotmail.com>
Sender: kictanet-bounces+bitange=jambo.co.ke@lists.kictanet.or.ke
Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2011 13:32:57
To: <bitange@jambo.co.ke>
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions<kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke>
Subject: [kictanet] GSMA: Calls will remain high between African countries
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KICTANetiquette : Adhere to the same standards of acceptable behaviors online that you follow in real life: respect people's times and bandwidth, share knowledge, don't flame or abuse or personalize, respect privacy, do not spam, do not market your wares or qualifications.DISCLAIMER: The information contained in or accompanying this e-mail is intended for the use of the stated recipient only. It may contain confidential, proprietary or legally privileged information. No confidentiality or privilege is waived or lost by any mistransmission. If you receive this message in error, please immediately delete it and all copies of it from your system, destroy any hard copies of it and notify the sender. You must not, directly or indirectly, use, disclose, distribute, print, or copy any part of this message if you are not the intended recipient.
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| T: +254 720 406 093 | E: pkariuki@gmail.com | Twitter: kaboro | Skype: kariukiphares | B: http://www.kaboro.com/ |DISCLAIMER: The information contained in or accompanying this e-mail is intended for the use of the stated recipient only. It may contain confidential, proprietary or legally privileged information. No confidentiality or privilege is waived or lost by any mistransmission. If you receive this message in error, please immediately delete it and all copies of it from your system, destroy any hard copies of it and notify the sender. You must not, directly or indirectly, use, disclose, distribute, print, or copy any part of this message if you are not the intended recipient.
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To get all breaking news alerts send the word BREAK to 6667 or visit http://mobile.nation.co.ke to read news on your mobile phone.