A woman has moved to court seeking to have the body of a child she sired with city lawyer Harrison Kinyanjui exhumed (People Daily, September 21, p.7). A woman cannot “sire” a child. To sire is to father, an exclusively male function.
Wekesa, 30, disappeared after he walked out of his house at a residential home in Kibomet to buy maize flour from a nearby shop (Standard, September 23, p.12). What did the writer mean by Wekesa “walked out of his house at a residential home in Kibomet”?
According to Wanjiru, Wekesa was wearing a vest, short and sandal (Standard, September 23, p.12). No, he wore a vest, shorts and sandals.
Poor households are feeling the pinch of the rising cost of living much more than their better-off counterparts, an analysis of official data shows (Nation Africa tweet, September 23). What’s the news here? What “analysis”? Isn’t it obvious?
But County Commander Jacinta Wesonga termed the allegations as fabaseless. (Standard, September 23, p.12). New word invented at Mombasa Road.
Kikuyu Council of Elders’s meeting in Kieni resolves to back ODM leader for presidency in 2022 General Election (Standard, September 20, p.1). Kikuyu Council of “Elders’s meeting” is wrong. In a noun that takes an “s” in plural, the possessive is indicated by an apostrophe alone, as in “elders’ meeting”.
If you are still not abreast with the celebrated anchor’s Sunday Live bulletin last night, here is a brush-up (Capital FM online, September 20). It is “abreast of”, not “with”.
Poor photo caption: Friends and kin of James Gakara with his wife Winnie at Nakuru Level Five Hospital yesterday (Daily Nation, September 23, p.3). Photo has three persons, a man and two women. How does the reader know who Winnie is?
Incidentally, the university is not sailing in this boat alone. the University of Nairobi…(Standard, September 16, p.26). How, good grief, do you begin a sentence with a small letter/lower case in the editorial of a national newspaper?
Finally: Five divorced women on what to consider before getting married (Saturday Nation, S Mag, September 25, p.13). Lo! E student on how to score an A. Newspapers would make the world walk on its head. Or have relationship writers hit intellectual menopause?
