Ahoy! Politicians Who Care about Grammar!

Can you imagine American politicians getting all hot and bothered about grammar? Too bad these government ministers are halfway around the world.

This comes from The Malawi Nation:

Health Minister Marjorie Ngaunje and Deputy Minister of Irrigation and Water Development Frank Mwenefumbo on Thursday went to town on fellow parliamentarian Gerald Mponda (Independent) on grammar basics.

But MP for Nkhotakota Central Clement Stambuli (UDF) bemoaned the development, saying there are some Cabinet ministers who also cannot construct
proper sentences in English and that it was unfair to pick on one MP only.

Mponda, who is also UDF MP for Blantyre South West, stood on a point of order, informing Education Minister Anna Kachikho that the problem of lack of educational materials was common in most schools throughout the country.

Mponda, in his remarks, mixed up singulars and plurals like ‘has’ and ‘have’, a development that prompted Ngaunje to express worry over the way the MP was ‘misplacing’ some words.

Ngaunje told the House she was worried with the way Mponda was applying grammar, saying the MP was using plurals instead of singulars and vice versa.

Stambuli said considering that the Queen’s language is not the legislators’ mother tongue, it was not right to rebuke the MP, saying some members of the Executive have problems with sentence construction.

Stambuli then warned the government side to watch out, as the opposition would be on the look out for those who would “murder the Queen’s language.”

SPOGG confesses, meanwhile, to needing to look up the location of Malawi.