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| Columnists | | MIND YOUR LANGUAGE:
LATE ACP MAYAGILA’S ‘HIERSE’ PLACED IN A ‘PORCH’ HOTEL | Kironde
Daily News; Friday,July 18, 2008 @20:01
| SOME five days ago somebody I did not know well rang inviting me for dinner at the top hotel in Dar es Salaam, the Movenpick (You know, the Hotel built on a former open space, and which has been changing names: from the Sheraton, to the Royal Palm, to Movenpick; to the what, next?). By coincidence I happened to have, in front of me at that time, the daily Custodian broadsheet, and was reading an article entitled: “There is indeed no free lunch on earth or in heaven!” under a regular column called “A Little Chat with a Fat Lady by RM”. The columnist narrates a story in which somebody is invited to a very expensive hotel only to find out that he was supposed to make a hefty contribution to this forthcoming wedding ceremony. We are further told that the invitee, “had dressed to kill and ate what he could. The place was ‘porch’ and he could see that someone had paid a lot of money to host the guests” (The Custodian, 21st June 2008, p. 9)
A porch is an entrance covered by a roof in front of a building. Our hotel may have a porch but Fat Lady did not mean that. To go into such a hotel you need a fat pouch (here pouch means a wallet in which money is kept). Again this is not what she wanted to say. I am sure she wanted to convey the message that the hotel in question was expensive, used by the rich. The correct word is ‘posh’. So you can have a posh hotel, a posh car, a posh family and so on. Incidentally one of those posh cars, in the world is the one branded Porsche. Thus we have three words sounding similar but spelt differently and carrying different meanings: porch, posh, and pouch.
Why did Fat Lady have the presumption of having lunch (forget about its being free) in hell? The little we know of hell is that once in there, it is burning, burning, burning, and forever at that. You do not die from the burning since you go to hell only after dying. Do you recall the story of poor Lazarus and the rich man? They both died. Lazarus went to heaven; the rich man to hell. The latter was suffering so much that he requested Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and touch his scorch-dry tongue; a request that was not granted. Life in hell may be worse for fatties since the fat heats up but does not melt. So, Fat Lady note: it is endless burning in hell. No lunch there.
The columnist narrates that no sooner had our invitee arrived at the posh hotel, than he was given ‘the mic’ to make his pledge. Now, it is either a microphone, or a mike. ‘Mic’ won’t do. His offer of Tshs 200,000/- drew murmurs. He was persuaded to upgrade it to Tshs 700,000/-. However, Fat Lady writes, “..he neither returned to the vikao, nor did he contribute the said sum (i.e his pledge)”. Meaning that he actually had a free lunch contrary to what Fat Lady is telling in her story. I too had my free dinner plus two super cool Tuskers at the Sheraton, whoops Movenpick; and was moreover promised an assignment. So there are exceptions to the rule. Free lunch or dinner is possible, at least on earth.
Let us leave Fat Lady to ponder about her obesity. Two newspapers reported on the death of retired Bandmaster of the Police Force ACP Justin Dotto Mayagilo aged 88, at the Aga Khan Hospital (Daily Blog July 12, p.3). For the young men of 1947 who enjoyed the morning band at school before the start of classes, and who still recall band songs such as “Baba Paka akasema twendeni kuwinda panya…”, the late Mayagilo will be missed. My-african (July 12, p. 3) carried a photograph related to this event, with a caption reading: “Relatives and friends of the late famous Police Brass Band leader, Michael (??) Mayagilo in mourning at the latter’s ‘residents’ in Dar es Salaam yesterday. The ‘hierse’ of Mayagilo was expected to be transported to Tinde Village in Shinyanga District for burial. (Picture by AS)”. Please note that it was at his ‘residence’ not his ‘residents’ that mourners had gathered. Moreover what was supposed to be transported was not a ‘hierse’. It is not even a ‘hearse’, the word which the writer wanted to use. A hearse is a large car used to carry a dead body in a coffin at a funeral. What was presumably transported (possibly in a hearse) was the coffin bearing the late Mayagilo’s body. May he rest in peace, and may there sprout many other bandleaders, to take his place, Amen.
We end up on a note of hope. Minister for Industries etc, Mary Nagu wants us to live long. “‘Nix’ it in bud, Nagu says of HIV/AIDS”, goes the front page headline in bold (Sunday Blog July 13th). Not quite. It is “Nip it in the bud”, that is, prevent something from becoming a big problem by stopping it in early days. Let us heed Dr Nagu’s advice.
kironde@aru.ac.tz | | | | |
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