Grammar and Glamour

Friday again.

I usually get some feedback on my articles. Most of it comes immediately after people read my articles and it usually come from one overly critical follower whose name I will not mention for the sake of my security. On a different note, after the article in which I talked about the health system I got what I would call atypical feedback and according to people I had grossly assassinated the Queen's language. My grammar was bad, if we have to be simple.

That was probably not the first time I had messed up my grammar, but I guess people noticed that because it was too obvious and not worth the digninty of Richie Online. I am sure that few people were put off by the error and they found it hard to complete the article.

I have been on the receiving end of poor grammar, and knowing what that feels like made me feel a bit bad about the thing. To me, poor articulation of ideas be it in an articles speech, sermon or lecture can affect the listening and acquisition of the message.

Of late, the quality of both spoken and written English in the country has been dwindling. It is not strange to find an online news publication, a minister, a tertiary student, a preacher and any other person messing up their subject-verb agreement. People might think it doesn't matter (note; its not "it don't matter"), giving the excuse that the audience still gets the message; a thing I don't entirely agree with for a reason I cannot manage to explain.

When we have a problem we are trying to sort out via Richie Online, traditionally we always find someone to blame before finding a solution. For our "English problems", however, this has been a tough task, but I think we still managed to find someone to blame. At least.

To be fair, I don't think we can blame a person for this. Rather we should look at the systems in place. I am told that in the past people used to be fluent in the Queen's language at as early as primary school level. Something, somehow, has happened and we have diluted our education system to an extent that the intellectual ends mixing his tenses up. Should we blame it on democracy or free primary education? I am sure you have your own answer to that and I will keep mine to myself.

My worry on this whole thing is that if there is nothing done, we will soon have no people who will be able to communicate ideas effectively through writing and speaking. I am sure it will be a bit easier for the one who writes as the computers we have might be able to suggest corrections. On the other hand, I don't think computer correction has what it takes to make a good writer.

This post probably has no learning point for the typical Richie Online reader. Anthu mumatha chingerezi ndi chichewa chomwe inu. The point was just to make you aware of what you have already observed. If some of you end up in a position where you can do something about this (and I don't mean being the Minister of Education), you need to do something about it.

Taking science courses in university should not be an excuse for poor communication in any language. We can still go back to the basics and look up some few things about language. For those of us with children, it wouldn't hurt to send them to a school that is a bit more expensive than free if it is what it takes to make them fluent communicators. They need that.

Lastly, I think some of these basic things need to be communicated. Somehow we make errors on things we are not supposed to err on. Subject verb agreement. It's "I do", he or she "does" and they "do". Next time I find some Richie Online reader saying "he don't" in a restaurant like some dudes who were boasting with English this day, some unspecified action will be taken.

Ndangonenapo.

Nice weekend.