By Segun omolayo
Call it editorial blues, you will be right. One of such phenomena in reference here is the sustained puzzlement about the habit of some writers who come back over and over at their editor with the same errors that have been corrected in their previous writings.
The editor is forever left in a quandary, wondering whether he is making any difference or whether they don’t notice his interventions or whether the interventions simply do not matter to them.
But some do write back to thank him for “being such a helpful mentor” or for “adding tremendous value to their work” or for “helping them to understand themselves better” or for “refining their text beyond recognition.”
Yet, they keep coming back with recurrent errors about the usage of many terms or expressions such as highlighted below.
This columnist has continued to experience all that, letting him know that it is morning yet in the task of shepherding many a writer into line.
With a view to/Used to
The usual problem with these terms is that some writers repeatedly distort them, thereby damaging their essence and meaning. What is worse, in all of such instances, effective communication suffers. It gets clearer in the examples examined below:
(a). . .In line with the bureaucratic system, the officers so recruited are to function in various departments with a view of rendering efficient and effective services to the people.
In this sentence, “the idiom with a view to has been mangled with the substitution of the preposition to with of. The fact is, with a view to is a complete English idiom that should not be altered in any circumstance. So, we restore the integrity of the expression accordingly:
“In line with the bureaucratic system, the officers so recruited are to function in various departments with a view to rendering efficient and effective services to the people” (“Pop” Errors).
Next is a similar misuse arising also from a distortion of the English standard idiom concerned, albeit in a totally different way (Remember, we once observed that writers tend to commit the same mistakes in different ways.)
(b). . .The Red Cross has in the past few months extended similar training to the LNP, teachers and students, with a view to strengthen their skills in handling emergency cases.
The error here has completely altered the essence of the original idiom involved, namely: with a view to doing something, meaning “with the aim of doing something” (Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary). It follows therefore that the appropriate word in the idiom is the gerund strengthening, NOT the infinitive to strengthen. A gerund is “a word that ends in ‘-ing’ which is made from a verb, and which is used like a noun” (ibid.). The word strengthening in the idiom is therefore actually a noun, not a verb! Thus, correct usage is:
The Red Cross has in the past few months extended similar training to the LNP, teachers and students, with a view to strengthening their skills in handling emergency cases” (“Pop” Errors).
And this:
(c). . .He indicated that prior to their intervention, residents of rural communities were used to fetch water from creeks.
Here, the full infinitive to fetch has been wrongly applied instead of the required gerund fetching, where fetching is a noun, not a verb. In other words, to fetch introduces a distortion, which has altered the meaning of the intended message – a classic case of someone writing what he does not mean! So, accordingly, we correct as follows:
He indicated that prior to their intervention, residents of rural communities were used to fetching water from creeks.
Our writers’ companion advises that: “We must note, however, that where a writer still encounters difficulties in any of the foregoing situations, what to do is to simply reconstruct in the following ways: (a) In line with the bureaucratic system, the officers so recruited are to function in various departments to render efficient and effective services to the people; (b) The Red Cross has in the past few months extended similar training to the LNP, teachers and students, to strengthen their skills in handling emergency cases; (c) He indicated that prior to their intervention, residents of rural communities used to fetch water from creeks” (“Pop” Errors).
Win
Your sensibilities must have been assaulted times without number by the misuse of the verb win by football enthusiasts and others alike. To the misusers, win is a perfect synonym for defeat and all other words with a similar meaning. The sentence below is a case in point:
One wagers that it will be nigh impossible for Crystal Palace to win Chelsea in the FA final.
It is important to master the normal objects of the verb win and its meaning, too, as the misusers always apply it to express what it does not mean. To win is to come first or receive a prize in a competition. Hence, “Pop” Errors says: “You do not win an opponent in a contest. You beat, defeat, vanquish, conquer, outclass, outshine, drub, or wallop an opponent, while you win a contest, a match, a prize, an award and the like. This is such a pandemic that often you hear “Chelsea will win Man. U.” even from football analysts. This is incorrect. Correct usage is: “Chelsea will beat Man U and win the Premier League.” In the same way, we say:
“One wagers that it will be nigh impossible for Crystal Palace to win Chelsea in the FA final.”
