Top 35 Bloopers and Foibles in Ghanaian Journalism

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• Grammar Police 12 years ago

  Dr. Thompson,
  
  You never disappoint! Any attempt to correct poor grammar in print or on the Internet is usually met with this strange excuse: "English language is not our mother tongue!" or "Did you not understand the conte ...
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  Dr. Thompson,
  
  You never disappoint! Any attempt to correct poor grammar in print or on the Internet is usually met with this strange excuse: "English language is not our mother tongue!" or "Did you not understand the contents of the piece?"
  
  Lame excuses are killing Ghanaians' writing capability, and we have, for all intents and purposes, become a laughing stock around the globe.
  
  Seriously, some of these so-called journalists ought to be rounded up and flogged on rough benches for committing these inexcusable errors in writing!
  
  Every Ghanaian newspaper editor worth his salt ought to place a copy of this article on the desks of his or her apprentices (that's what our journalists really are!), so they can be inspired. We should no longer accept the poor excuses people render for producing poor literary work.
  
  As you mentioned in your piece, good writing comes from two sources: formal education and a sacred determination to succeed! God bless you.

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• Anane 12 years ago

  Thank you Nii Moi. I have a problem that I can't get my head around. The difference between Principle and Principal. I feel it is so misused these days by even native British or English-speaking people. I often see in newspap ...
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  Thank you Nii Moi. I have a problem that I can't get my head around. The difference between Principle and Principal. I feel it is so misused these days by even native British or English-speaking people. I often see in newspapers and elsewhere the use of 'principle' when they actually meant 'principal'. It has become so common that I begin to think, may be i am wrong.

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• Kwadwo 12 years ago

  Thanks. I have learned a great deal. Please keep up the good work.

  Thanks. I have learned a great deal. Please keep up the good work.

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• Symbiosis 12 years ago

  An effort in the right direction but I am afraid it amounts to just a little too late.
  
  I am saying so because the level chaos - or, I should rather say the pandemonium surrounding the use, the misuse and the gross under-ut ...
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  An effort in the right direction but I am afraid it amounts to just a little too late.
  
  I am saying so because the level chaos - or, I should rather say the pandemonium surrounding the use, the misuse and the gross under-utilization of this very important and unavoidable language in the great information age that we find ourselves in, is dispiriting when one considers the odds placed against us by the general shortage of quality expression and comprehension of the medium of English around us.
  
  We are in a situation where even Directors of the Institute of Journalism, Directors of the Institute of Languages as well as other critical institutions of 'higher' learning, publicly and heedlessly speak 'twinglish' or some kind of 'nyebro-istic anglicisms'. I really find it difficult to understand how after going through over 20 to 30 years of thorough education in any subject via the medium of the English one can continue to resist the ability of speaking that language reasonably well.
  
  It is true that our journalists should set a good example in written and spoken English for a society whose native language is not English but unfortunately due to some historical quirks, English has become our official language. This imposes the necessity on all to not only to speak and write this foreign language well but to also to understand it sufficiently well in order to be part of or to be beneficiaries of the never-ending process of development which is fueled by that language.
  
  Like everything else around us, we need to adopt radical and possibly revolutionary methods to up-grade the quality of English in our country if we want to measure up to others. It is only upon the platform of that language that we can be good or excellent students and later on in life, great professionals in any subject of our wishes. I cannot come to terms with university graduates who cannot express themselves well and cannot write a simple CV or letter of application for employment. I thus fear for this country because I suspect that the situation seems bound to get worse than better - at least in the future.
  
  I could go on and on but again, another problem relating to our inability to effectively handle the English language well, crops up. We all know that is an uphill task for many of us to read anything at all beyond 4 paragraphs in English. It gives us headaches. It is therefore advised that even in our desire to launder the problem, we should keep it short, nice and easy.

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• Symbiosis 12 years ago

  A couple of 'corrections' please.
  
  Last 4 words of 5th paragraph should read "in the near-future."
  
  Last 6 words in last paragraph "...nice and easy for public consumption."
  
  Thank you.

  A couple of 'corrections' please.
  
  Last 4 words of 5th paragraph should read "in the near-future."
  
  Last 6 words in last paragraph "...nice and easy for public consumption."
  
  Thank you.

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• Nyansasem 12 years ago

  Thanks, Mr. Thompson. Could you please send this great piece to the Ghana Institute of Journalism or whatever they call it?
  
  And please do not forget to add "IMBECILE" to your list. They keep on using this offensive word to ...
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  Thanks, Mr. Thompson. Could you please send this great piece to the Ghana Institute of Journalism or whatever they call it?
  
  And please do not forget to add "IMBECILE" to your list. They keep on using this offensive word to describe individuals with physical and mental disabilities in Ghana everyday.

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• Kwesi 12 years ago

  Well, coming from Dr Thompson, what can we say? That guy is gold, pure gold.

  Well, coming from Dr Thompson, what can we say? That guy is gold, pure gold.

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• Yaw Amofa 12 years ago

  Its not only in writing, most newsreading journalists have attrocious pronunciations of english words, such as Argest for August, met for mete, lunch for launch, etc

  Its not only in writing, most newsreading journalists have attrocious pronunciations of english words, such as Argest for August, met for mete, lunch for launch, etc

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• Yaw Amofa 12 years ago

  Its not only in writing, most newsreading journalists have attrocious pronunciations of english words, such as Argest for August, met for mete, lunch for launch, etc

  Its not only in writing, most newsreading journalists have attrocious pronunciations of english words, such as Argest for August, met for mete, lunch for launch, etc

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• U-Turn 12 years ago

  GNA is the worst of them all. I suggested the use of the "Grammarly" software, but the agency has ignored this advice and keeps making elementary mistakes, which could simply have been avoided. The least they could do is as y ...
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  GNA is the worst of them all. I suggested the use of the "Grammarly" software, but the agency has ignored this advice and keeps making elementary mistakes, which could simply have been avoided. The least they could do is as you suggest. They could turn on the grammar and spell-check features in the MS Officeapplication

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• U-Turn 12 years ago

  GNA is the worst of them all. I suggested the use of the "Grammarly" software, but the agency has ignored this advice and keeps making elementary mistakes, which could simply have been avoided. The least they could do is as y ...
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  GNA is the worst of them all. I suggested the use of the "Grammarly" software, but the agency has ignored this advice and keeps making elementary mistakes, which could simply have been avoided. The least they could do is as you suggest. They could turn on the grammar and spell-check features in the MS Officeapplication

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• John Carslake 12 years ago

  Here are a few more I have noticed over the years:
  
  Plurals
  Some words can be used in the singular and can also be used when talking about more than one thing without having to add an ‘s’.
  Examples are: aircraft: ...
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  Here are a few more I have noticed over the years:
  
  Plurals
  Some words can be used in the singular and can also be used when talking about more than one thing without having to add an ‘s’.
  Examples are: aircraft: ‘The aircraft arrived late’. Or ‘The airline operates eight aircraft’. Not 'aircrafts'.
  
  
  Leave
  This is seen in print as a misspelling of ‘live’ because it is often pronounced with a long ‘i’ instead of a short ‘i’.
  
  A land
  Land is not a single item but an indeterminate quantity, so it should be ‘a piece of land’ or an area of land’, for example

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• Dannybee 12 years ago

  Thanks for your piece. I think ghanaweb journalism leaves much to be desired. Reports of incidents are often written in the direct speech instead of using reported speech. For example, "The Minister said he is going to deal w ...
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  Thanks for your piece. I think ghanaweb journalism leaves much to be desired. Reports of incidents are often written in the direct speech instead of using reported speech. For example, "The Minister said he is going to deal with the problem" instead of "The Minister said he was going to deal with the problem". Each time I read its report I come across grammatical errors. The website has to do something about this. I rather enjoy reading articles written by people other than their journalists.

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• Obroni 12 years ago

  Lets be clear, a large majority of Ghanian's are less literate. Still our journalist are trying to impress their superiors by using "heavy" words or to show how well they know their English. As a consequence these less litera ...
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  Lets be clear, a large majority of Ghanian's are less literate. Still our journalist are trying to impress their superiors by using "heavy" words or to show how well they know their English. As a consequence these less literates won't buy newspapers, give up on reading and prefer to listen to a radio in their local language. I am a non English schooled but highly educated foreigner and even I have trouble reading some of their heavy words and use a dictionary ones in a while. WRITE IN A LANGUAGE YOUR MOTHER WRITES and not your professor !

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• Azaato 12 years ago

  A brilliant contribution!!, Nii Moi. Grammar is only one part of the problem. The other problem I find particularly disturbing as a professional journalist, is the unethical part. There are many stories which appear on Ghanaw ...
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  A brilliant contribution!!, Nii Moi. Grammar is only one part of the problem. The other problem I find particularly disturbing as a professional journalist, is the unethical part. There are many stories which appear on Ghanaweb and it doesn't take an effort to detect that the writer simply manufactured everything at his or her desk based on hearsay. In other words, telling blatant lies without their conscience pricking them.The kind of stories published by the "Al Hajj", The Informer, etc.

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• Prof 12 years ago

  Dr so so and so, are you now running away from your high economic propaganda which promoted you to secure job from NDC government to achieve praises from your poor journalism?
  
  You are a disgraced Economist. We are expectin ...
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  Dr so so and so, are you now running away from your high economic propaganda which promoted you to secure job from NDC government to achieve praises from your poor journalism?
  
  You are a disgraced Economist. We are expecting you to talk about current economic situation in Ghana and leave the journalists alone.
  
  If you found no problem with this current government then I am afraid to tell you that you are an incompitent economist.

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• Payo 12 years ago

  This clown calling himself an 'economist' with his 2/4 phd from Pittsburgh should be very ashamed of himself. He is sitting here pontificating about journalists' grammar, when we have issues like GYEEDA etc to worry about. Th ...
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  This clown calling himself an 'economist' with his 2/4 phd from Pittsburgh should be very ashamed of himself. He is sitting here pontificating about journalists' grammar, when we have issues like GYEEDA etc to worry about. This stout buffoon wouldn't let us sleep during Kufuour's time, jumping from radio station to radio station spewing his half-based economics all over the place. Hasn't he heard of SADA and GYEEDA and the mess we are in as a country? Has he no opinions anymore? Is the mess going on not far messier than the sale of Vodafone that he nearly got a heart attack over? Are journalists' grammatical mistakes the biggest problem facing Ghana? What a clown.

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• Kpakpo Onukpa - Accra 12 years ago

  And what are you doing about the mess? National development is the responsibility of all. At least he did something. What have you done, you useless NPP clown?

  And what are you doing about the mess? National development is the responsibility of all. At least he did something. What have you done, you useless NPP clown?

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• Sammy 12 years ago

  The man was on CitiFM yesterday criticizing government for overspending and suggesting ways to improve the economy. what more do you want. I always enjoy his article, anyway. Learn to discuss issues and stop personality at ...
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  The man was on CitiFM yesterday criticizing government for overspending and suggesting ways to improve the economy. what more do you want. I always enjoy his article, anyway. Learn to discuss issues and stop personality attacks. We need progresss.

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• C.Y. ANDY-K 12 years ago

  Thanks for telling those two slobs about Nii Moi's recent appearance on radio. Nii Moi, of course, was a journalist before pursuing further education in Econs. Besides, he is no longer based in Ghana, having secured a UNDP jo ...
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  Thanks for telling those two slobs about Nii Moi's recent appearance on radio. Nii Moi, of course, was a journalist before pursuing further education in Econs. Besides, he is no longer based in Ghana, having secured a UNDP job which keeps him most of the time in southern Africa.
  
  Andy-K

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• Whatever 12 years ago

  What Nii Moi wrote is true. There are too many horrible journalism on show nowadays. I think the problem could be traced to the age-old problem of our inability to develop our own language. How many english words has Ghana de ...
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  What Nii Moi wrote is true. There are too many horrible journalism on show nowadays. I think the problem could be traced to the age-old problem of our inability to develop our own language. How many english words has Ghana developed and added to the english language since it adopted that language? Zilch. So if you cannot develop an english tongue, how do you exppect to pass that speaking ability to the next generation? Are we always going to rely on the classrooms which are filled with teachers who can't speak proper english? Something is wrong

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• PEARL 12 years ago

  THIS MAN NEVER CEASES TO AMAZE ME. AS A JOURNALIST, I SALUTE THIS EFFORT TO BRING OUR LANGUAGE CHALLENGE TO THE FORE OF PUBLIC DISCOURSE. THANKS, BUDDY!

  THIS MAN NEVER CEASES TO AMAZE ME. AS A JOURNALIST, I SALUTE THIS EFFORT TO BRING OUR LANGUAGE CHALLENGE TO THE FORE OF PUBLIC DISCOURSE. THANKS, BUDDY!

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• Kwasi Gyan-Apenteng 12 years ago

  Very entertaining and useful article. However, "from the word go" is the correct idiomatic expression if a person/author intends to say that something happened from the beginning or from scratch (which is also from horse raci ...
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  Very entertaining and useful article. However, "from the word go" is the correct idiomatic expression if a person/author intends to say that something happened from the beginning or from scratch (which is also from horse racing).

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