The ManicaPost
“. . . Our intellect won’t be insulted,” a man says in public, you can imagine, writing to the Editor accusing the Education columnist of The Manica Post of getting rusty due to old age. He adds, “He (The columnist) must update his experience knowledge to match current trends . . . ” Is English Language a fashion statement that rides on trends?
Lest serious readers of the education column think the critic is a serious reader, a teacher even! Here are the facts: Morris Mtisi replies.
I know the man who is afraid his intelligence may be insulted. He needs no introduction. I know him very well. He has been nagging me for years about things to do with English he does not understand including remarks about typographic errors in the newspaper, wrong full stops and commas. To date he continues to make irritating comments and remarks about what I write.
I last responded to his comments three years ago when my capacity to ignore him became fully developed. He never tires. What a nuisance! He continues to annoy me and insult me over what he believes to be ‘‘his intellect.’’ Before I knew his problem I used to be irritated and annoyed to the bone. Now I know. He was ‘‘fired’’ from work where he used to occupy an important office. May be he is aware, maybe he is not. That is not my business.
His business now is reading advertising bill-boards all over the town and suburbs . . . picking up wrong spelling and punctuation in my columns and letting the newspaper know. And he claims to be an avid reader of our newspaper. Wherever he sees an error or mistake, hopefully he knows the difference, he writes to The Manica Post.
At one point, precisely three, is it four years ago, I was in trouble with the courts when I told him my piece of mind and used a few strong adjectives to describe him on the phone. He dragged me to court to answer a case of abuse of the phone to abuse a subscriber. I later on realised the man thought he could make a little bit of money for defamation of character on the phone. None came his way. He continued to be a nuisance . . . and continues to be, three, four, years down the line. This time around he managed to cheat the porous edges of The Manica Post and found space to be at his game, this time in the paper, not in my phone.
Is it sensible to argue with him when he insults you to this end because you have ignored him for more than three years, if not four?
Four or five years ago he attended an unsolicited interview here. He wanted to be a writer, a columnist in The Manica Post. The result, you can all guess.
He believes English language like a piece of iron can become rusty. Where wisdom dictates that the older the wine, the better it becomes, he believes it becomes rusty and out of fashion. Of course I am much older now . . . thank God, but so am I much wiser in the mastery of English Language skills . . . and life itself. He thinks that a war veteran who is now 50 or 60 can no longer fire an AK 47 that spits venom. Try it! Stand in front of an AK rifle aimed at your head by an old war veteran. (I hope he does not literally try it and commit suicide.) He thinks anything found in the dictionary is correct to the letter, whatever way you use it. He has no idea what is the place of colloquialism or slang in English language. He has no idea about contexts and connotations that make the character of every word in any language. He thinks the dictionary dictates all sense and meaning. He has no idea what are ornate or artificial expressions. There are no spent cartridges in the mastery of language. The older and more mature the people are, the finer and more subterranean their language becomes.
What does the man do? He sends a message on my phone on the same issue: “fired’’ is perfect English. He quotes chapter and verse in a dictionary. On realising I am still determined to ignore him, he resorts to writing to the Editor. He believes that English responds to trends. In his mind, he says The Post education columnist ‘must up-date himself to match current trends.’ Not in examinations! Examinations demand formal language . . . and not current trends of street lingo. Informal language can only be acceptable where it is used appropriately to distinguish and define character and context, not to be the candidate’s own formal language of explanation, narrative, argument or description. I hope this makes sense to all teachers and learners of English language. We need to be aware of colloquialism, English slang and other forms of ornate and artificial expressions. I am speaking to serious learners of English even beyond examinations.
I have taken this space and my right to respond not because I believe the man will think what I am saying makes sense. I took the right to respond to his insult so that he does not confuse or sway serious and normal education column readers, students and teachers. Some might have thought his feed-back comments were serious food for thought from a serious teacher or reader.
See next week’s column: The Complexity of English (Part 2) for more on what the man raises and claims to be ‘perfect’ English: that an employee can be ‘fired’ from work to which I said, ‘ It is more formal and correct to say, ‘ he or she is dismissed from work, not fired.’
That is his cause for this war . . . this storm in a teacup, characterised by the man’s unnecessary and appetite to insult my call to The Manica Post and Diamond FM Radio, namely EDUCATION.
Next week I will explain the ‘he was fired from work’ in-correctness to students and teachers of English in Part 2 of The Complexity of English. And other issues of course that make English complex. Do not miss your copy of The Manica Post next week. And of course tune in to Diamond FM Radio at 9:30 pm for The Radio Teacher!
