It came with boat
According to one Kevin Mapasure of The Zimbabwe Independent,
ZIFA has bidded to host three Fifa World Cup tournaments in the next five years …
That’s some wonderful Heraldesque use of the language there, Kevin. Now, just in case things had changed since I last went to school, I decided to ask La Internet if bidded had recently been admitted.
Verb
bidded
- (nonstandard) Simple past tense and past participle of bid.
Really, Wiktionary? And then BLAM it hits me, right there in black and white … well, blue and underlined … “nonstandard”.
So I checked the Nonstandard category.
Category:Nonstandard
English term and uses considered improper, incorrect, or commonly misused, especially in formal English.
So no Kevin, bidded is not a motherfecking word!
Stand in the corner and face the wall.
and yet no English person gives a flying fuck how any Shona word is spelt or pronounced.
So what?
So why do you care that a second-language speaker is not perfect in English and you feel it blog-worthy when he makes a mistake common enough to be classified as such?
Reminds me of getting punished for “Speaking Shona” in primary school yet fluency and creativity in Shona was scorned at.
This is what Ngugi was harping on about in that little collection of his essays – “Decolonising The Mind”.
I care because I believe if you’re gonna write for, edit or publish a national newspaper IN ENGLISH, your English has to be up to a certain standard.
If you’re gonna use the language in a medium that gets as much exposure as a newspaper, you have to be fastidious about fact-checking, spell-checking and grammar. A newspaper has to be an example of good and proper use of the chosen language, and this guy just fucked it up.
Also, there is no such thing as a common mistake for a journalist. What about the kid who read that article and is now gonna think bidded is acceptable in general use, because he saw it in the paper?
So what is up with your knee-jerk reaction to my pointing out someone’s mistakes in their use of the English language? Did it trigger some inferiority issues you have?
Awwwww was someone teased at school?
Because if you’re gonna argue that it’s wrong for me to point out mistakes, I’ll tell you that it’s my choice whether to forgive those mistakes and move on (like, I guess, you) or to POINT IT THE FUCK OUT.
Do I have a colonialised mind because I don’t let shoddy print journalism slide?
Beezy,
You a black zimbo, kevin is a black zimbo, im a black zimbo – not one of us speaks nor writes perfect English. No zimbo of any race speaks nor writes perfect English. And just to turn it up a notch, in England (as the home of the language) there is wide variation in written and spoken English determined by geography and more importantly class*. No English person has the perfect English – not even the Queen – the language (like all others) is fluid and pliable. ‘BBC English’ is a nationalist attempt at perfect English language preservation but only makes sense for an English person to even bother with that effort as that uses language as a cultural expression of English identity – which is English – unlike me, you and kevin.
Point being, we are not English, we each, according to our rickety remnants of post-colonial education, media and personal interactions have a personal ‘standard’ of English which we assume to be acceptable and then judge everyone else’s standard relative to our own.
Again this is a very colonial thing to do, to bother with a second-language whose own speakers to do not bother with perfecting save for an archaic institution of national pride.
When was the last time if ever, you ever corrected a white ZIMBO for mispronouncing or mis-spelling a Shona or Ndebele name or word? Or do you smile at the effort made and feel a warm glow that ‘he tried’?
Or more pertinently, ever corrected a black zim private school kid when they mangle Shona or Ndebele names/surnames and words as if they’ve just landed off the Drommedaris, Reijger and Goede Hoop?
Kevin’s mistake is common – and this I get from your own reference in your post – so why make a meal of it?
By your gathered standard of English, that mistake is not excusable and he must be burnt at the stake. But he did not stitch together his English in the manner he did; indeed, by the same token, some other Zimbo who gathered and stitched together their English by better means than yours could monitor your blog and correct every bit of grammar which you think is perfect – by your standards.
And yes, I was teased, you were teased, every black zimbo that went to an English medium school was teased AND punished BY OTHER BLACK KIDS for English grammar and pronunciation mishaps – and that is sad – very SAD. It made me feel inferior. And then I saw the idiocy of it all and got over it.
And that teasing, born from the colonial system which coerced natives to learn English as the only medium to access an education, and which attached a delusion of superiority in the natives who spoke and wrote better and were most like the baas, is the same teasing which you gleefully mete out to kevin over his common grammatical error.
In answer to your last question, there is nothing wrong with pointing out a mistake to someone.
But there is everything colonial about one native mocking another native for making a mistake in the master’s language.
*Bob Dixon, Catching Them Young, “Vol 1: Sex, Race and Class in Children’s Fiction”, 1977
And there you go, so eloquently proving my point – it’s not that I pointed out the mistake, you have a sort of post-colonial inferiority that questions WHY there is a standard.
Let me school you a bit. English is our standard language, as well as Shona. There is RIGHT and there is WRONG English, whether your revolutionary sensibilities are offended or not, that doesn’t change the facts.
Kevin fucked up the standard English, that’s also a fact.
I pointed it out.
If your argument is that I’m mind-colonised house nigga for holding a WRITER to a standard of WRITTEN English, then by all means, bitch all you want.
But it won’t change the facts that you sound bitter at the English for colonising us, and not realising that your bitterness comes out as stupid desperation, bitching about what you assume is a neo-imperialist sellout attitude in my correcting someone who FUCKS IT UP.
So I corrected him. If you write in a newspaper, I’ll correct you too. If you want to write broken English, start a fucking blog.
And if you hate the language so much, or the colonial masters who gave it to you, comment in fucking Shona.
Furthermore, by implying that I’m wrong to analyse this journalists English, and that someone with better English than me can come around correcting my grammar, you’re saying that Kevin and I should be held to the same absolute standard?
Yes, I totally agree. Feel free, even you The Great Offended, to come around hear criticking my grammer and speling. No problem.
See, I don’t give a fuck. In fact, I welcome criticism. But, and here’s the beeg butt, I don’t write in a newspaper (anymore), and if I did right in an INGLISH-LANGUAGE newspaper, I would expect to be able to get it right.
Correct that, motherfucker.
Are you excusing mediocrity on the grounds that we, as native Shona-speakers, can not be held to the standards of English our (varying) educations set for us?
That is niggarism at it’s worst … I am black so I can be expected to speak English like an uncouth native, and I don’t care if you correct me, I am black dammit, pamberi neShona.
Good luck with that.
*slap*
And that’s “uncouth native” by my own definition, not Rhodes’ – before you get your penis in a knot.
Beezy, Beezy, Beezy …
I hope you understand what you just wrote, coz I dont.
Ita hasha shoma.
You don’t?
“Are you excusing mediocrity on the grounds that we, as native Shona-speakers, can not be held to the standards of English our (varying) educations set for us?”
Not rocket science.
Now now, boys. Play nice, or you’ll get a spanking.
I’m with JB all the way here. The colonial argument bores the crap out of me. Can’t fully comment on it. This is definitely one that I need to have in person. What I can say is if you insist on doing something a certain way, do it right, goddamit.
Mos Native, your in a bit of a mood. What the hell man? No black person can write perfect English? C’mon. Speaking perfect English is easy,just avoid using words and terms you’re not sure about, and Bob’s you’re Uncle. This nitwit could have saved himself some trouble by keeping it simple. Hell, spell check would’ve picked that one up. The guy’s a moron, as is whoever had to proof-read the copy. I’d accept the easy mistake argument, easy. But colonialism and blacks being incapable of perfect english, get a grip! God the word ‘bidded’ even sounds stupid. Stupid enough to make me grap the dictionary and check it out.
PS: It really grates on me when people use your instead of you’re.
PPS: On the off chance my little comment ain’t perfect English, note that I wasn’t tryna be perfect.
PPPS: A Journalist must always aspire for perfection in whatever they publish.
PPPPS: Mos Native, how do you feel about the fact that I speak (and have always spoken) better English than Shona.
spank me anyway 🙂
Tara – the fact that your English is better than your Shona does not mean that your English is perfect.
It just means that your English is better than your Shona.
Im in full agreement that dude must be on point with his
grammar and spelling – but to ridicule the bloke is some Anglocentric self-hating crap.
Same as making fun of a nigga just coz he speaks English with an ‘SRB’ accent. You dont marvel at his eloquence in Shona in that accent but you would mock him in English. And When the nigga round rolls his tongue just right and makes the closest approximation he can to a British or US accent then he “speaks so well”. Thats that bullshit.
p.s. u just read my comment then Beezy’s then u say IM in a mood? Tara ka?
Thank you Tara.
Mos Native, you still seem to be missing the point. Because I ridicule bad English it’s me being Anglocentric and self-hating?
Don’t be stupid.
Secondly, I didn’t make fun of a him because of his accent, and it’s not the same thing. Neither did I even talk about his Shona, because it’s got nothing to do with it.
I would correct a whitey if they fucked up some Shona word, but if they WROTE AN ARTICLE in Shona, which means they’re purpoting and EXPECTED to be fluent in it, and then they fucked it up, OF COURSE I would ridicule them.
Know what? I think the only self-loathing here is bleeding out of your comments, and frankly I’m starting to feel a little sorry for ya, bruv.
If someone’s gonna do something, they better do it well. If someone wants to write in Kwayedza, they better be fluent in Shona, and if they fuck it up, RIDICULE!
Right, right, right …
“Some PIGEONS, terrified by the appearance of a Kite, called upon
the Hawk to defend them. He at once consented. When they had
admitted him into the cote, they found that he made more havoc
and slew a larger number of them in one day than the Kite could
pounce upon in a whole year.”
Avoid a remedy that is worse than the disease.
@ACM – gimme an email address, I want to forward you a group email discussion – to use or lose – I was part of with a bunch of professional zimbos in SA/US/UK a couple weeks back – heady mix of capitalist/socialist/philosphic boys – “mos.native at gmail dot com”
had to do that to avoid the hyperlink.
p.s. point well noted.
*Sigh* Can’t people ever just say exactly what they mean. ACM, in layperson’s terms, please! Who’s the Pigeon, Hawk, and Kite? Ainchu going a bit off topic?
He’s trying to feel intelligent.
Tara the last line is for you i.e “Avoid a remedy that is worse than the disease.” Both Joe and Mos Native’s remedies to Kevin’s mishap bring more problems than the issue required. I put it in quotes because it is a well known Aesop’s fable.
Mos Native will do
Oh, I thought you meant that Zimbabwe was the cote, Zimbos the pigeons, colonists the kite, then got lost at the hawk. My bad. Didn’t realise you were talking about two kites. Am now googling Aesop.