Tuesday, July 28, 2009
MOVING!!
I will mainly be blogging from here: http://otlogetswe.wordpress.com. This blog will therefore be changed minimally in the future.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
JOB OPPORTUNITY: Setswana dictionary
Do you have a degree in English and or African Languages (Setswana)? We have a job for you to work on the Bilingual Setswana-English English-Setswana dictionary or a Thanodi ya Setswana. Please respond by March 20th if you are interested and can work in Gaborone.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Personal Infor & Contacts
* Thapelo is the current language advisor to Radio Botswana News and Current Affairs.
* He was the language advisor to the Mokgosi Newspaper, in which he had a column.
* He conducts language seminars and trainings in Setswana and English languages.
* He has been involved in numerous translation projects.
* He speaks periodically on radio about national language issues.
* He may be contacted at the following address:
DR. THAPELO J. OTLOGETSWE
UNIVERSITY OF BOTSWANA
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
PRIVATE BAG 00703
GABORONE, BOTSWANA
otlogetswe@gmail.com
* He was the language advisor to the Mokgosi Newspaper, in which he had a column.
* He conducts language seminars and trainings in Setswana and English languages.
* He has been involved in numerous translation projects.
* He speaks periodically on radio about national language issues.
* He may be contacted at the following address:
DR. THAPELO J. OTLOGETSWE
UNIVERSITY OF BOTSWANA
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH
PRIVATE BAG 00703
GABORONE, BOTSWANA
otlogetswe@gmail.com
Monday, November 03, 2008
Subprime, Pre-Slime
By SIMON WINCHESTER
Published: October 20, 2008 in The New York Times
YOU can usually tell that a period of human disquietude has evolved into something of historical dimensions when the lexicographers become involved. Most events of moment are eventually defined by single words that were once quite unfamiliar — perestroika, arbitrage, Tiananmen, dotcom — but which endless retellings have rendered mundane. And thus it is with the lexical keystone of today, an unlovely two-syllable concatenation employed interchangeably as both adjective and noun: subprime.
Interestingly, the word arbiters at the headquarters of the Oxford English Dictionary have discovered something odd: “subprime” has suffered a surprising and unusually rapid evolution. Until 1991 it meant something eminently desirable and worthy of aspiration.
Lexicon is by its very nature a fugitive affair. Over the centuries the meanings of words slip and slide without cease, and dictionaries have to be constantly revised. The current print edition of the O.E.D., for example, still sports this definition of the unusual word “abbreviator”: “a junior official of the Vatican, whose duties include drawing up the pope’s briefs” — which would clearly, after briefs-as-legal-documents transmuted into briefs-as-boxer-alternatives, benefit from some rewriting.
The dictionary’s New Words Group began looking closely at subprime’s history late this summer, when the bat-wings of the current crisis began fluttering against Oxford’s mullioned windows. Team members discovered that when first applied to financial matters in 1976, “subprime” meant a loan offered below the prime rate and typically was offered only to the most desirable borrowers.
In was not until 1993 that it took on a much less enticing guise, with Business Wire referring to a company that “buys subprime loans made ... to creditworthy buyers unable to qualify for loans from banks.” And an O.E.D. editor was moved to write a new definition: “Of or designating a loan, typically having relatively unfavorable terms, made to a borrower who does not qualify for other loans because of a poor credit history. ”
And this, one imagines, is the meaning that will go down in history. But what prompted the lexical revisionism? The Oxford lexicographers do not pretend to know why, nor, as dictionary-makers, to care. But they do know the change occurred between 1991 and 1993, during a period that can now perhaps be designated the Great Subprime Ambivalence of 1992, during the final years of the elder George Bush’s presidency — a time that students of politics and economy, rather than lexicography, might now care to study in their turn.
Simon Winchester is the author of “The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary.”
Published: October 20, 2008 in The New York Times
YOU can usually tell that a period of human disquietude has evolved into something of historical dimensions when the lexicographers become involved. Most events of moment are eventually defined by single words that were once quite unfamiliar — perestroika, arbitrage, Tiananmen, dotcom — but which endless retellings have rendered mundane. And thus it is with the lexical keystone of today, an unlovely two-syllable concatenation employed interchangeably as both adjective and noun: subprime.
Interestingly, the word arbiters at the headquarters of the Oxford English Dictionary have discovered something odd: “subprime” has suffered a surprising and unusually rapid evolution. Until 1991 it meant something eminently desirable and worthy of aspiration.
Lexicon is by its very nature a fugitive affair. Over the centuries the meanings of words slip and slide without cease, and dictionaries have to be constantly revised. The current print edition of the O.E.D., for example, still sports this definition of the unusual word “abbreviator”: “a junior official of the Vatican, whose duties include drawing up the pope’s briefs” — which would clearly, after briefs-as-legal-documents transmuted into briefs-as-boxer-alternatives, benefit from some rewriting.
The dictionary’s New Words Group began looking closely at subprime’s history late this summer, when the bat-wings of the current crisis began fluttering against Oxford’s mullioned windows. Team members discovered that when first applied to financial matters in 1976, “subprime” meant a loan offered below the prime rate and typically was offered only to the most desirable borrowers.
In was not until 1993 that it took on a much less enticing guise, with Business Wire referring to a company that “buys subprime loans made ... to creditworthy buyers unable to qualify for loans from banks.” And an O.E.D. editor was moved to write a new definition: “Of or designating a loan, typically having relatively unfavorable terms, made to a borrower who does not qualify for other loans because of a poor credit history. ”
And this, one imagines, is the meaning that will go down in history. But what prompted the lexical revisionism? The Oxford lexicographers do not pretend to know why, nor, as dictionary-makers, to care. But they do know the change occurred between 1991 and 1993, during a period that can now perhaps be designated the Great Subprime Ambivalence of 1992, during the final years of the elder George Bush’s presidency — a time that students of politics and economy, rather than lexicography, might now care to study in their turn.
Simon Winchester is the author of “The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary.”
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
pommeled but not destroyed
I have been pommeled, but I am not destroyed. My feet are weary and tired; my body is bruised. I am thirsty and the sun is scorching my skin and blinding my eyes. The hot wind is roasting my baked lips. I am tired, hungry and exhausted. My lower lip is bleeding. I have been attacked. I feel dispossed. My eyes are bruised and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. I cannot speak; I cannot cry. I am knocked down, but I am not down and out. There is one who made the sun and the scorching wind; one who made the future and the past. I am standing on his shoulder.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Thinking allowed: Is it possible
I have been thinking lately; thinking through the rattling of my keyboard; thinking as I walk along the UB campus and seeing students sitting under hard concrete benches snuggled under the mosetlha trees. I am just thinking, what will it take to turn this country around? What will it take to see miracles? What will it take to have churches in their 1,000s? Have you thought of that? Maybe you haven't, but you should. Four years I was haunted by these questions: "Are the churches we have the best we could ever have? or is the best yet to come?" Have you wondered about churches in Botswana and remembered those stinging words of Christ as he visited churches and literally put them on the scale (Rev 2: 1-7). He reminded them of the first love. The quality of church leadership, the rot that lies at the heart of local churches; the stentch of sexual immorality that rises from the church roof tops, strong and forceful; strong and forceful as the loud sounding praises of Christians, should be a thing of the past that vanishes in distant horizons behind us. The financial mismanagement; insipidity; hate; unforgiveness; the insatiable love of money and property consistently eat at the core of local churches. What is wrong with our nation? I am just thinking, just wondering and I wish you could join me and dare to believe. Dare to believe that dry bones, white, and desolate and forgotten down in the valley can one day join with the sinews & muscles and come to life again. Yes I am asking you to believe, no, am not asking for religious "Amens" that sometimes thunder truth to silence. I am asking you to believe during your private times; genuinely believe that God desires to change this nation & that he wants to change it through YOU! Will you avail yourself to be God's hands, his feet and mouth through which he channels his grace? Or do you find satisfaction in being an outside; one who watches from the margins; a spectator; a cheerleader; a critic?
Tim Hughes wrote that amazing song, a sound track of hungry souls that are dissatisfied with the status quo, which he entitled "There must be more than this"
There must be more than this, O breath of God come breathe within
There must be more than this, Spirit of God we wait for You
Fill us anew we pray, Fill us anew we pray
Chorus:
Consuming fire, fan into flame passion for your name
Spirit of God, fall in this place
Lord have your way, Lord have your way, With Us
Verse 2:
Come like a rushing wind; Clothe us with power from on high
Now set the captives free; Leave us abandoned to your praise
Lord let your glory fall; Lord let your glory fall
I ask you to believe that there IS more that this. God's desire and wish exceeds our vision and goals. Let's believe there is more than this... and that my friends; that "more" lies only in Jesus Christ our Saviour; one who died so that we might live forever. He is the one who gives MORE.
Tim Hughes wrote that amazing song, a sound track of hungry souls that are dissatisfied with the status quo, which he entitled "There must be more than this"
There must be more than this, O breath of God come breathe within
There must be more than this, Spirit of God we wait for You
Fill us anew we pray, Fill us anew we pray
Chorus:
Consuming fire, fan into flame passion for your name
Spirit of God, fall in this place
Lord have your way, Lord have your way, With Us
Verse 2:
Come like a rushing wind; Clothe us with power from on high
Now set the captives free; Leave us abandoned to your praise
Lord let your glory fall; Lord let your glory fall
I ask you to believe that there IS more that this. God's desire and wish exceeds our vision and goals. Let's believe there is more than this... and that my friends; that "more" lies only in Jesus Christ our Saviour; one who died so that we might live forever. He is the one who gives MORE.
I am around
I haven't vanished dear friends. I am still around. I haven't lost my faith in Christ. It has instead been fortified by the clear evidence that God is on the march in our country; that where we thought we couldn't reach, the church keeps on moving regardless of the peccadilloes and the impediments that stand on our way. No I haven't vanished dear friends. I am continuously digging my heels; scratching and searching for God's leadership, amazed by his infinite power to transform even the worst of us. So when I wake up every morning and hear the ramblings of my one year old, Lobopo, I am eternally reminded that I am a child in God's hands; that his grace has no limits towards me; that I who was once an outsider, an enemy of God, persona non grata, have found favour in the complete work of the cross.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Strange emotions
The past two weeks have been amazing! I defended my PhD thesis on Tuesday November 6th, 2007. Saturday the 10th my father died after having stroke for some 21 years. The last time I saw him was October 27th. We buried him November 17th in Mahalapye.
I was not very close to my dad. But it was such an amazing thing to hear his brothers and niece speak so eloquently about him. "He was a calm man under pressure" they said. They relaid tales of the rustic life of farming where upon beasts of burden entangled themselves with some leather cords how he calmly disentangled them and set them on their path. His musicality was highly celebrated, as a well-known accordion player in Lobatse. Speaker after speaker celebrated his love for good clothes. He was a good looking man, we were told.
We were told how some evil villagers, some witches and wizards, wanted to bewitch his father's kraal [to make his father's cows disappear through witchcraft] and upon recognising these evil messages in the kraal he assailed them , dragged them, yanking them a few centimeters off the ground into his father's yard. Some of these men walk the streets of Mahalapye mad even up to this day! Who wouldn't want a father like that. But I heard all this about him days after his death.
So I have had extreme emotions.... But God has been with me in such an amazing way...
I was not very close to my dad. But it was such an amazing thing to hear his brothers and niece speak so eloquently about him. "He was a calm man under pressure" they said. They relaid tales of the rustic life of farming where upon beasts of burden entangled themselves with some leather cords how he calmly disentangled them and set them on their path. His musicality was highly celebrated, as a well-known accordion player in Lobatse. Speaker after speaker celebrated his love for good clothes. He was a good looking man, we were told.
We were told how some evil villagers, some witches and wizards, wanted to bewitch his father's kraal [to make his father's cows disappear through witchcraft] and upon recognising these evil messages in the kraal he assailed them , dragged them, yanking them a few centimeters off the ground into his father's yard. Some of these men walk the streets of Mahalapye mad even up to this day! Who wouldn't want a father like that. But I heard all this about him days after his death.
So I have had extreme emotions.... But God has been with me in such an amazing way...
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Friday, July 27, 2007
The Chaos
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!
Dr. Gerald Nolst Trenite (1870-1946),
a Dutch observer of English.
Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Feoffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough --
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!
a Dutch observer of English.
For the love of the English language
You Think English is Easy?
Try and read these sentences right the first time.
1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present .
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row .
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting, I shed a tear.
19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented inEngland or French fries in France Guinea
And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out, and in which an alarm goes off by going on.
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
PS. - Why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick"
You lovers of the English language might enjoy this.
There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is "UP."
It's easy to understand UP , meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP ? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP ? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report ?
We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car . At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special.
And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP . We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.
We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP ! To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP , look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP , you may wind UP with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP . When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP .
When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.
When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP .
We could go on, but I'll wrap it UP , for now my time is UP , so... Time to shut UP!
Try and read these sentences right the first time.
1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present .
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row .
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting, I shed a tear.
19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in
And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out, and in which an alarm goes off by going on.
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
PS. - Why doesn't "Buick" rhyme with "quick"
You lovers of the English language might enjoy this.
There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is "UP."
It's easy to understand UP , meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP ? At a meeting, why does a topic come UP ? Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report ?
We call UP our friends. And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car . At other times the little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses. To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special.
And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP . We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.
We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP ! To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP , look the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions. If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP , you may wind UP with a hundred or more. When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP . When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP .
When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.
When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP .
We could go on, but I'll wrap it UP , for now my time is UP , so... Time to shut UP!
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Prostitution is unjustifiable
published on Sunday Standard [18.02.2007] here
Dear Editor
This article is in part a response to Eddie Mdluli’s opinion on prostitution, but it is also an attempt to address the broader subject of prostitution.
While Mdluli claims to tackle the subject from ‘the standpoint of some research’ this is not evident, save ‘driving past by some prostitutes on some of our roads’ which he did.
His article reads like Ivan Vladislavic’s Restless Supermarket.
At one level, he asserts, “As a Christian, I am not for Prostitution,” Yet he extols its virtues.
The truth is that Mdluli rests content with a superficial kind of social analysis which glorifies the imagined benefits of prostitution and fails to grapple its underlying causes and negative outcomes.
Prostitution justifications appear like freezing ladies of the night – dressed in cheap dark fur coats of excuses and counterfeits of glittering pendants of misinformation. The argument patterns are the same: The Problem excuse: Prostitutes are at a high risk of contracting HIV and developing Aids.
Solution: Legalise prostitution so that prostitutes could come out of the shadows and have access to condoms and counselling without fear of victimisation and arrest. The Benefit excuse: Prostitution is beneficial to the prostitute and the society. The prostitute gets paid for selling her body; the society benefits from taxing whatever money she makes and exploiting her sexually. Everybody wins – it falsely appears!
However, our views on the subject are influenced by our position on the three issues: First is our perception of the value and sanctity of the human body. Is the human body naturally anything special that needs protecting or can be violated, sold in sex or slavery or lacerated in any way? Second is our understanding of sex. Is sex an animal instinct which could be gratified on the basis of one’s Pula power? Third, what is our moral reference point? On what basis do we determine wrong or right? – What Mdluli terms hiding behind ethics. Is our moral standard the theory of evolution; that we are on earth by chance, having come through evolution and having survived through that old-fashioned tired maxim ‘survival of the fittest’. Is our moral reference in philosophers like the humanist Descartes with his declarative “I think, therefore I am”; David Hume; the agnostic, Immanuel Kant, or Jean-Paul Sartre, the existentialist with his famous credo ‘Travel, polygamy and transparency’? Or do we turn to faith, such as Christianity, as a standard against which to live our lives?
Prostitution cannot be justified on the basis that it is an old profession – George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs Warren’s Profession – nor on the basis of its benefits – the end can never justify the means.
Crime, pilfering, thieving, corruption and assassination are equally old professions, and equally iniquitous. Gangsters and paedophiles trading in drugs and child pornography make unimaginable wealth. However, their ‘benefits’ don’t dope us into justifying their evil exploits.
If the human body is nothing but flesh, as some thinkers argue, then a price tag on it may be appropriate. It may be built a brothel inside on which sex-thirsty men feast – the Pula-fit feasting on the Pula-weak. Marxists should be appalled, and yet most remain silent. Feminists should be revolted, yet most stay hushed. An iniquitous activity can never be purified by clean surroundings and condom use.
Mr Mdluli, prostitution and marriage don’t mix. At the heart of marriage definition is exclusivity. The English poet William Blake in his famous poem, London, has shown that prostitution turns the blessings of marriage into death and decay resulting in a sense of increased despair, when he says “.....the youthful Harlot’s curse/...plagues the Marriage hearse”.
What is worrisome in our anti-Aids campaign is that the original national campaign of ABC (abstinence, be faithful and condomise) has been overshadowed by a gigantic C of condom-use, relegating the message of abstinence and faithfulness to mythology. I am persuaded of the need to resuscitate the ABC campaign giving equal focus to abstinence and faithfulness as to condom-use.
Huge funds have been poured into condom purchase, distribution and literature on their proper use. No resources have been set aside into teaching this society faithfulness and abstinence. That’s a grave mistake which this nation has started paying for heavily. Consequently, sexual activity is found amongst primary school pupils while unfaithfulness remains pervasive across the society.
Tackling the prostitution matter requires diverse strategies. At one level, its resolution will encompass resolving the Zimbabwean impasse for many prostitutes in both Gaborone and Francistown are Zimbabwean girls squeezed out of their country by Mugabe’s misrule. At another level, we should take a holistic approach and tackle national issues that in part engender prostitution: amongst these being unemployment, urban migration, poverty, female abuse, and moral degeneration.
I see no study which documents the spread of prostitution in Botswana. Is it an urban malady or insidiously spread nationally? Its causes are still to be diagnosed and treated.
Thapelo Otlogetswe
Gaborone
Dear Editor
This article is in part a response to Eddie Mdluli’s opinion on prostitution, but it is also an attempt to address the broader subject of prostitution.
While Mdluli claims to tackle the subject from ‘the standpoint of some research’ this is not evident, save ‘driving past by some prostitutes on some of our roads’ which he did.
His article reads like Ivan Vladislavic’s Restless Supermarket.
At one level, he asserts, “As a Christian, I am not for Prostitution,” Yet he extols its virtues.
The truth is that Mdluli rests content with a superficial kind of social analysis which glorifies the imagined benefits of prostitution and fails to grapple its underlying causes and negative outcomes.
Prostitution justifications appear like freezing ladies of the night – dressed in cheap dark fur coats of excuses and counterfeits of glittering pendants of misinformation. The argument patterns are the same: The Problem excuse: Prostitutes are at a high risk of contracting HIV and developing Aids.
Solution: Legalise prostitution so that prostitutes could come out of the shadows and have access to condoms and counselling without fear of victimisation and arrest. The Benefit excuse: Prostitution is beneficial to the prostitute and the society. The prostitute gets paid for selling her body; the society benefits from taxing whatever money she makes and exploiting her sexually. Everybody wins – it falsely appears!
However, our views on the subject are influenced by our position on the three issues: First is our perception of the value and sanctity of the human body. Is the human body naturally anything special that needs protecting or can be violated, sold in sex or slavery or lacerated in any way? Second is our understanding of sex. Is sex an animal instinct which could be gratified on the basis of one’s Pula power? Third, what is our moral reference point? On what basis do we determine wrong or right? – What Mdluli terms hiding behind ethics. Is our moral standard the theory of evolution; that we are on earth by chance, having come through evolution and having survived through that old-fashioned tired maxim ‘survival of the fittest’. Is our moral reference in philosophers like the humanist Descartes with his declarative “I think, therefore I am”; David Hume; the agnostic, Immanuel Kant, or Jean-Paul Sartre, the existentialist with his famous credo ‘Travel, polygamy and transparency’? Or do we turn to faith, such as Christianity, as a standard against which to live our lives?
Prostitution cannot be justified on the basis that it is an old profession – George Bernard Shaw’s Mrs Warren’s Profession – nor on the basis of its benefits – the end can never justify the means.
Crime, pilfering, thieving, corruption and assassination are equally old professions, and equally iniquitous. Gangsters and paedophiles trading in drugs and child pornography make unimaginable wealth. However, their ‘benefits’ don’t dope us into justifying their evil exploits.
If the human body is nothing but flesh, as some thinkers argue, then a price tag on it may be appropriate. It may be built a brothel inside on which sex-thirsty men feast – the Pula-fit feasting on the Pula-weak. Marxists should be appalled, and yet most remain silent. Feminists should be revolted, yet most stay hushed. An iniquitous activity can never be purified by clean surroundings and condom use.
Mr Mdluli, prostitution and marriage don’t mix. At the heart of marriage definition is exclusivity. The English poet William Blake in his famous poem, London, has shown that prostitution turns the blessings of marriage into death and decay resulting in a sense of increased despair, when he says “.....the youthful Harlot’s curse/...plagues the Marriage hearse”.
What is worrisome in our anti-Aids campaign is that the original national campaign of ABC (abstinence, be faithful and condomise) has been overshadowed by a gigantic C of condom-use, relegating the message of abstinence and faithfulness to mythology. I am persuaded of the need to resuscitate the ABC campaign giving equal focus to abstinence and faithfulness as to condom-use.
Huge funds have been poured into condom purchase, distribution and literature on their proper use. No resources have been set aside into teaching this society faithfulness and abstinence. That’s a grave mistake which this nation has started paying for heavily. Consequently, sexual activity is found amongst primary school pupils while unfaithfulness remains pervasive across the society.
Tackling the prostitution matter requires diverse strategies. At one level, its resolution will encompass resolving the Zimbabwean impasse for many prostitutes in both Gaborone and Francistown are Zimbabwean girls squeezed out of their country by Mugabe’s misrule. At another level, we should take a holistic approach and tackle national issues that in part engender prostitution: amongst these being unemployment, urban migration, poverty, female abuse, and moral degeneration.
I see no study which documents the spread of prostitution in Botswana. Is it an urban malady or insidiously spread nationally? Its causes are still to be diagnosed and treated.
Thapelo Otlogetswe
Gaborone
Some pictures from Brighton
Rosey, Shinie, myself and Steve Walford. Above is the lead elder, Peter Brooks.
Shinie and Stuart Townend
Shinie with Matt Redman
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Thursday, January 11, 2007
So long
It's shocking how long I haven't updated this blog! Here are some pics from the past few months. We have a baby boy! Lobopo-Tyrone, was born December 7th, 2006 weighing at 4kgs. He is 6 weeks and weighs 5.8kg now. The picture below was taken when he was 12hrs
My dog, Charles (5 months), has grown too.
My dog, Charles (5 months), has grown too.
Monday, May 15, 2006
Prostitution has no place in our society
Prostitution has no place in our society
For the past few months an argument has been raging on the possible legalization of prostitution in the country. The argument has taken different forms and has sadly been entertained by reasonable people amongst them medical practitioners, members of parliament and some UB academics. At the heart of the argument are three issues. First, is the value and sanctity of the human body. Is the human body naturally anything special that needs protecting or can be violated, sold in sex or slavey or lacerated in any way? Second, is our understanding of sex. Is sex an animal instinct which could be gratified on the basis of one’s Pula power? Third, what is our moral reference point or moral standard? On what basis do we determine wrong or right? Is our moral standard ‘the ape-man’ theory of evolution; that we are merely on earth by chance, having come through evolution and having survived through that old-fashioned tired maxim ‘survival of the fittest’. Or our moral reference in philosophers like the humanist Rene Discartes with his declarative “I think, therefore I am”; David Hume; the agnostic, Immanuel Kant, Soren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzshe, Bertrand Russell (whose life can be summarised by the word ‘contradition’), or Jean-Paul Sartre, the existentialist with his famous credo ‘Travel, polygamy and transparency’. Or do we turn to faith, Christianity, as a standard against which to live our lives?
Turning to the first question the Christian view tends to be fairly straightforward. It affirms the sanctity of the human body by arguing that humanity was created in the image of God. It argues that the human body is a temple of the Holy Spirit demanding care and preservation. But one may question why such a Christian view should matter in Botswana since not everyone in the country professes to be Christian. We are a secular state, some argue. The Christian view should matter if the statistic that 70% of the country is Christian is true. Any well functioning democracy will take into cognisance the dominant view of its population. The 70% never voted for a secular view.
If on the other hand the human body is nothing but flesh, mere meat, as some philosophers and certain thinkers argue, then a price tag can be easily fixed on it. It can be built a brothel in which sex-thirsty men one after another, repeatedly come and feast on it – the Pula-fit feasting on the Pula-weak. Have we as a nation lowered the value of the human body that we could argue that a price tag be put to it. Marxists should be appalled, and yet most remain silent! Have we so turned our backs on moral principles that we argue not only on putting the female body for sale, but also musing on how we can tax profits of such appalling transactions? While South Africa has set a moral regeneration board, some of our country’s top minds are arguing for moral degeneration laws. They are wrestling with the question: “How can we reconfigure reality to accommodate human passions?” God help us! If on the contrary we value females in our society and see them for what they are, people created in the image of God. If we love them as sisters, as daughters, as mothers and as friends, we will work to eradicate those conditions which have pushed some into prostitution.
On the second question of sex, the Christian view affirms sex as the intimacy builder to marriage. It doesn’t demean the woman’s body and put a price on it, rather men in the Christian view are to see their women as “flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone”; equals in a sexual relationship. Those who argue for prostitution have shown a naivety of what strengthens marriage; they have repeatedly and yet falsely argued that marriage is strengthened by unfaithfulness. They should have done rudimentary research: asked their own female partners. They have also ridiculously argued that prostitution will decrease HIV/Aids spread because of hygienic brothels. The weakness of this argument is apparent. The pro-prostitution proponents haven’t grasped why HIV spreads. Research has shown repeatedly that a lack of condom use; multiple partners and lack of abstinence have in varying degrees contributed to the spread of the HIV virus. There is no evidence that those with multiple partners will want to sleep with prostitutes, or that building brothels in Gaborone will increase condom use in the cattle posts, lands and some dark lit city corner after partying the night away. What has become clear actually is that the original national campaign of ABC (abstinence, be faithful and condomise) has been overshadowed by a gigantic C, condomise, and the message of abstinence and faithfulness has been relegated to mythology.
On the third question of moral reference, the Christian view offers God through Jesus Christ as the ultimate moral reference. Life is lived on biblical principles, not through self effort but on God’s grace. Evolution theory collapses on the moral question; it rather promotes immorality. The human body in essence is similar to that of beasts, merely at a different evolutionary level. Our ape ancestors were smarter and cunning than others, those who were meek and kind ended as dinner. Virtue has no room in the scheme of things. Philosophers offer a cocktail of answers to the question of moral reference. Existentialists such as Sartre argue for the absurd and perceive man as being in the “hurled” or “dumped” state and as the author of his own values. Ravi Zacharias says of Sartre: “As for Sartre’s ethical theory, it is one of antinomianism – lawlessness. It is a philosophy that is unliveable.” The philosopher David Hume argued that man was all matter without a soul and therefore placed moral judgement on personal feelings. His philosophy is problematic and alienating, no wonder he observes that: “I am affrighted and confounded with that forlorn solitude in which I am placed by my philosophy.” As for Immanuel Kant, usually ranked alongside the big three – Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, he posits agnosticism. The question still stands: what is our moral reference? God, an ape or ourselves? We nail the answer to the question; we nail future choices and future moral debates.
Prostitution has no place in our society. It must be perceived for what it is: an anomaly, a social disease in desperate need of a cure. A nation that plays dice with a social ill may indeed be purchasing “its own spiritual death on an instalment plan”. The challenge of rescuing girls forced into prostitution remains. At one level its resolution will encompass resolving the Zimbabwean impasse for many prostitutes in both Gaborone and Francistown are young Zimbabwean girls squeezed out of their country because of Mugabe’s misrule. At another level we will have to take a holistic approach and tackle national issues that in part engender prostitution: amongst these being unemployment, urban migration, poverty, female abuse, and moral degeneration.
Thapelo Otlogetswe
Johannesburg, SA.
For the past few months an argument has been raging on the possible legalization of prostitution in the country. The argument has taken different forms and has sadly been entertained by reasonable people amongst them medical practitioners, members of parliament and some UB academics. At the heart of the argument are three issues. First, is the value and sanctity of the human body. Is the human body naturally anything special that needs protecting or can be violated, sold in sex or slavey or lacerated in any way? Second, is our understanding of sex. Is sex an animal instinct which could be gratified on the basis of one’s Pula power? Third, what is our moral reference point or moral standard? On what basis do we determine wrong or right? Is our moral standard ‘the ape-man’ theory of evolution; that we are merely on earth by chance, having come through evolution and having survived through that old-fashioned tired maxim ‘survival of the fittest’. Or our moral reference in philosophers like the humanist Rene Discartes with his declarative “I think, therefore I am”; David Hume; the agnostic, Immanuel Kant, Soren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzshe, Bertrand Russell (whose life can be summarised by the word ‘contradition’), or Jean-Paul Sartre, the existentialist with his famous credo ‘Travel, polygamy and transparency’. Or do we turn to faith, Christianity, as a standard against which to live our lives?
Turning to the first question the Christian view tends to be fairly straightforward. It affirms the sanctity of the human body by arguing that humanity was created in the image of God. It argues that the human body is a temple of the Holy Spirit demanding care and preservation. But one may question why such a Christian view should matter in Botswana since not everyone in the country professes to be Christian. We are a secular state, some argue. The Christian view should matter if the statistic that 70% of the country is Christian is true. Any well functioning democracy will take into cognisance the dominant view of its population. The 70% never voted for a secular view.
If on the other hand the human body is nothing but flesh, mere meat, as some philosophers and certain thinkers argue, then a price tag can be easily fixed on it. It can be built a brothel in which sex-thirsty men one after another, repeatedly come and feast on it – the Pula-fit feasting on the Pula-weak. Have we as a nation lowered the value of the human body that we could argue that a price tag be put to it. Marxists should be appalled, and yet most remain silent! Have we so turned our backs on moral principles that we argue not only on putting the female body for sale, but also musing on how we can tax profits of such appalling transactions? While South Africa has set a moral regeneration board, some of our country’s top minds are arguing for moral degeneration laws. They are wrestling with the question: “How can we reconfigure reality to accommodate human passions?” God help us! If on the contrary we value females in our society and see them for what they are, people created in the image of God. If we love them as sisters, as daughters, as mothers and as friends, we will work to eradicate those conditions which have pushed some into prostitution.
On the second question of sex, the Christian view affirms sex as the intimacy builder to marriage. It doesn’t demean the woman’s body and put a price on it, rather men in the Christian view are to see their women as “flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone”; equals in a sexual relationship. Those who argue for prostitution have shown a naivety of what strengthens marriage; they have repeatedly and yet falsely argued that marriage is strengthened by unfaithfulness. They should have done rudimentary research: asked their own female partners. They have also ridiculously argued that prostitution will decrease HIV/Aids spread because of hygienic brothels. The weakness of this argument is apparent. The pro-prostitution proponents haven’t grasped why HIV spreads. Research has shown repeatedly that a lack of condom use; multiple partners and lack of abstinence have in varying degrees contributed to the spread of the HIV virus. There is no evidence that those with multiple partners will want to sleep with prostitutes, or that building brothels in Gaborone will increase condom use in the cattle posts, lands and some dark lit city corner after partying the night away. What has become clear actually is that the original national campaign of ABC (abstinence, be faithful and condomise) has been overshadowed by a gigantic C, condomise, and the message of abstinence and faithfulness has been relegated to mythology.
On the third question of moral reference, the Christian view offers God through Jesus Christ as the ultimate moral reference. Life is lived on biblical principles, not through self effort but on God’s grace. Evolution theory collapses on the moral question; it rather promotes immorality. The human body in essence is similar to that of beasts, merely at a different evolutionary level. Our ape ancestors were smarter and cunning than others, those who were meek and kind ended as dinner. Virtue has no room in the scheme of things. Philosophers offer a cocktail of answers to the question of moral reference. Existentialists such as Sartre argue for the absurd and perceive man as being in the “hurled” or “dumped” state and as the author of his own values. Ravi Zacharias says of Sartre: “As for Sartre’s ethical theory, it is one of antinomianism – lawlessness. It is a philosophy that is unliveable.” The philosopher David Hume argued that man was all matter without a soul and therefore placed moral judgement on personal feelings. His philosophy is problematic and alienating, no wonder he observes that: “I am affrighted and confounded with that forlorn solitude in which I am placed by my philosophy.” As for Immanuel Kant, usually ranked alongside the big three – Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, he posits agnosticism. The question still stands: what is our moral reference? God, an ape or ourselves? We nail the answer to the question; we nail future choices and future moral debates.
Prostitution has no place in our society. It must be perceived for what it is: an anomaly, a social disease in desperate need of a cure. A nation that plays dice with a social ill may indeed be purchasing “its own spiritual death on an instalment plan”. The challenge of rescuing girls forced into prostitution remains. At one level its resolution will encompass resolving the Zimbabwean impasse for many prostitutes in both Gaborone and Francistown are young Zimbabwean girls squeezed out of their country because of Mugabe’s misrule. At another level we will have to take a holistic approach and tackle national issues that in part engender prostitution: amongst these being unemployment, urban migration, poverty, female abuse, and moral degeneration.
Thapelo Otlogetswe
Johannesburg, SA.
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