A ‘passesrby ‘ walks besides poster promoting the country’s tourism
IT is my hope that you are managing life well, in this month of October, which has reached its halfway mark. I have before me, the authoritative Daily Blog, October 4-10 edition. Its page 14 carries eight colourful photographs, the caption to one of which, had something of interest for this column. It reads:
“A ‘passersby’ ‘walks’ beside posters that promote the country’s tourism destinations placed at the Tanzania Tourist Board walls located at the junction of Ali Hassan Mwinyi road and Laibon Street in Dar es Salaam, yesterday”.
It looks like whoever wrote the caption, believed that “passersby” was singular. Not at all. “Passersby”, or, “passers by”, or, “passers-by”, is plural. Its singular form is “passerby”, or, “passer-by”. It means: “someone who is walking past a place.
Our caption therefor needs to be re-written to change that “passersby” into: “passerby”.
If it was more than one person walking past these posters, the caption would have needed to be changed into: “Passersby walk beside posters to promote the country’s tourism…”.
We move to the Good Citizen, dated October 6. A story, on the paper’s page 4, titled: “Researchers told to focus on solving ‘societies’ problems”, is of interest.
The word “societies” is not correctly used, and needs to change in one or other, of these two forms: “society’s”, or, “societies’”. Note the apostrophe in both cases. Meaning that, research needs to focus on problems facing society, or, if you are so tempted, societies.
Halfway through the story, the guest of honour is quoted as telling researchers: “Current researches ‘needs’ to respond to current issues facing the community”.
If “researches” is correct, then “needs” should change to “need”. If the writer sticks to using “needs”, then “researches” should change into: “research”.
As I was not happy with the word “researches” as a plural of “research”, I had to seek assistance. An online explanation which I found interesting, had this to say: “Research is an example of a ‘mass noun’ (also known as an ‘uncountable noun’). Mass nouns aren’t pluralised, like most other nouns. It is very rare for ‘research’ to take the plural form. So, if you were to write ‘researches’ in an essay or paper, it would look like a mistake. If you want to be specific about the amount of research done, we suggest using a countable noun such as “study” (studies) or “investigation” (investigations).
True, the word “researches” does exist, but experts discourage using it since “research” could mean one, or many studies.
Winding up his speech, the guest of honour is reported to have asked academicians: “to write, or, review teaching ‘mannuals’ to keep abreast of events”. It is “manuals” (single ‘n’), not “mannuals” (double ‘n’).
Use of the definite article “the”, can be quite tricky. Do you put it there, in your sentence, or do you not? Or, instead, do you use the indefinite article “a” or “an”? We need to be on the lookout all the time.
The Good Citizen on Sunday dated October 10, had, on its back page, which is usually reserved for sports, a story titled: “Nine teams to represent Mainland in Union netball league”. The story is accompanied by a photograph, whose caption is brief and reads as follows: “Tanzania netball players compete, during ‘the’ past competition”.
Should the writer have used the definite article, “the”? Should he have used the verb “compete” and the noun “competition” in the same, short, sentence?
“The” is appropriate if the phenomenon being talked about has been referred to before. Here, it is not appropriate. Likewise, “compete in a competition”, is rather boring, given that English has got so many words.
The caption needs re-writing, and the following is proposed: “Tanzania netball players compete in a past game”.
The Good Citizen on Saturday (October 8 edition) has a story on its page 14, whereby the writer refers to: “the rule of the thumb”. This idiom is commonly used in the form of “a rule of thumb”. Gone are the two “the”s.
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