MIND YOUR LANGUAGE: You are punctual; Are you there “on time”, or, “in time”?

Greetings from Dodoma.

WE begin this week end’s piece, by quoting from a story appearing in a weekend paper, the Sunday Nation (Lifestyle, 29 October, page 3), published in the neighbouring country, Kenya. The story is titled: “This El Nino has behaved like my tribesmen on the way to pay dowry.”

Like was the case in Tanzania, the predicted El-Nino, did not come, prompting the writer to observe as follows: “Where I live, so far, it hasn’t rained, no, drizzled, more than five times, and all the vegetation around us is browner than greener due to being denied rainfall.”

This reminded the writer of how her community behaves when it comes to carrying out a dowry-paying ceremony known as ruracio: “In spite of preparing for months for this event, my community has never arrived to ‘the’ woman’s home ‘in time’ keeping the hosts waiting an entire day.”

The writer goes on: “There is no ruracio that I have ever attended that started ‘in time’ and the result is always angry in-laws….”

Normally, the dowry-paying party would agree to meet somewhere, near the host’s home, but: “There are of course those that never arrive ‘on time,’” and will come with this or other story as to why they are late.

This forced me to wonder whether, in this story the writer should have used: “in time”, “on time”, or, both.

There is a difference between “on time” and “in time”. “On time” means “at the arranged or correct time,” whereas the phrase “in time” means “before it’s too late.”

“On time” is used to mean “at the specific time given”, while “in time” means “early enough.”

The dowry-paying party in this story are expected to arrive at their in-laws home at an agreed time. They always arrive late. They never arrive “on time”. This is the version the writer should have used, not “in time”. So we re-write one of writer’s sentences:

“In spite of preparing for months for this event, my community has never arrived to ‘a’ (not, ‘the’) woman’s home ‘on time’, keeping the hosts waiting an entire day.”

So, when do we use “in time”? If a train is scheduled to arrive at a certain time, and it does so, it is on time. If it is then supposed to leave in five minutes, at say 5 o’clock, and you arrive one minute before it does, you are in time: “In time to catch the 5 o’clock train.”

Back home. We did get some heavy rainfall in many parts of the country. In Dar es Salaam, sections of the City were flooded. This, honestly, should no longer make news. Nevertheless, the Good Citizen on Saturday reported on this in a story titled: “Heavy rains bring businesses, transport to standstill”.

A passenger vehicle driver quoted by the story writer: “stressed that the ‘heavy downpour’ from Tuesday was so much that daladala business did not pay.” The driver: “plying from Mwanagati to Mnazi Mmoja said when it rains most daladala change routes …..”.

It is always tempting but: the adjective “heavy” in “heavy downpour,” is unnecessary since “downpour” means “a heavy fall of rain”. We have pointed out this many times before. “Downpour” says it all.

For transport vehicles, we say they “ply between point X and point Y”, not “ply from point X to point Y”. So, we can re-write the above two sentences as follows:

A passenger vehicle driver quoted by the story writer: “stressed that the ‘downpour’ from Tuesday was so much that daladala business did not pay.” The driver, “plying between Mwanagati and Mnazi Mmoja said when it rains most daladala change routes …..”.

Those living in flood-prone areas were warned: “People residing in the named areas must take action and be prepared ‘to evacuate’ because those are always prone to floods.”

“To evacuate” goes with an object. So, in this case, I would use “vacate”: “People living in flood-prone areas should be prepared to vacate.”

Enjoy your wet weekend!

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