Letter to Mahlamba Ndlopfu: We have allowed grammatical anarchy to run amok for too long

I am the keeper of the King’s English, a soldier of syntax, sworn to defend the beauty of language from the tyranny of sloppiness. Writing carelessly disrespects thought itself, so I march undaunted, ink-stained and gloriously pedantic.

By Bhekisisa Mncube

24 Oct 2025

Ah, Chief Dwasaho! I am a decorated freedom fighter. I fought against the misuse of verbs, the butchering of adjectives, and the merciless assault on commas.

My battlefield was the blank page; my weapon, the pen. I stood firm when split infinitives marched across our sentences, when dangling modifiers threatened the dignity of meaning.

Today, if need be, I am prepared to die for the nouns — to see them stand tall, proud, and properly capitalised in formal British English sentences, unperturbed by a missing comma. The precision of our language is not a trivial matter but a cornerstone of our society’s integrity.

We have allowed grammatical anarchy to run amok for too long, letting apostrophes wander where they please and punctuation marks desert their posts. But not under my watch. I am the keeper of the King’s English, a soldier of syntax, sworn to defend the beauty of language from the tyranny of sloppiness. Writing carelessly disrespects thought itself, so I march undaunted, ink-stained and gloriously pedantic.

Struggle is my life

Truth be told, I was recruited into the Struggle almost by accident. My first English Language lecturer in 1993, at a white college in Durban, once asked those who were prepared to die for the British English language to attend extra classes and write essays beyond the curriculum.

As a diligent student or perhaps a linguistic revolutionary in the making, I did. My command of the English language grew, and in that growth, I began to answer a question that had haunted me for years: Why were white people always rude to me?

Of course, my easy answer was racism, and I am sure it played its part, but there was also something else, something that struck their studio nerves: my broken English.

Many a time, I found myself in the frontlines of misunderstanding, defending my dignity against grammar’s invisible enemy.

“Give me your home address,” a white administrator would say politely, clipboard in hand.

Without hesitation, I would respond with conviction: “eHabeni Primary School, Private Bag 511, Eshowe 3838.” The administrator would lose composure every time, insisting that one cannot live in a private bag.

I was bewildered. That was home, where all letters left and few returned. Only later, after that first formal brush with English, did it dawn on me that I could not, in fact, stay in a private bag, and yet, by apartheid’s design, I was also a citizen of nowhere. No street. No electricity. No sanitation. No English teacher, unless you count 40 minutes of broken English delivered in Zulu as an English lesson.

The misuse of language is not just a political tool, but a personal affront to our dignity.

Gun for pen

But fear not, do not cry for me, South Africa, for I am a soldier of conscience. My Struggle for grammatically free sentences knows no bounds. I fight not for glory, but for clarity; not for applause, but for the sanctity of expression.

Each properly placed comma, each unbutchered adjective, is an act of rebellion against the ghosts of linguistic colonialism. I have long traded the gun for the pen, the street protest for the paragraph.

And while the world debates semantics, I will be in the trenches polishing verbs, freeing nouns and defending the English language with a Zulu heart and revolutionary resolve.

My leader, before you drift into a well-deserved slumber, perhaps out of sheer boredom from this humble missive, indulge me for a moment. I am no polyglot, far from it, but even you, a man of many tongues, will surely appreciate my service to the Republic of the Gupta.

You see, Comrade Leadership, I have mastered the dialect of dysfunction, the grammar of corruption, and the syntax of State Capture, fluencies no university teaches, but every South African has come to understand.

Immediately, not like a drill

In his letter to South African Police Service (SAPS) National Commissioner General Fannie Masemola, dated 31 December 2024, Minister of Police Senzo Mchunu, now on a forced leave of absence, wrote thus: “My observation, as indicated above, is that further existence of this team is no longer required, nor is it adding any value to policing in South Africa. I therefore direct that the Political Killings Task Team (PKTT) be disestablished immediately.”

Let’s be pedantic. To disestablish is a verb meaning: “to end the official status of something”.

In etymology, dis- is a prefix meaning “to reverse” or “remove”, and establish derives from the Old French establir, meaning “to set up or found”. Together, it literally means “to un-establish”, that is, to dismantle something set up by authority.

My leader, the letter shocked the police mandarins. Njiki njiki (sic), Minister Mchunu told the parliamentary ad hoc committee probing claims of judicial capture and political interference in the police that the phrase “immediately” does not, err, mean the PKTT should be dismantled straight away.

“Immediately is not like in a drill. Left, they turn left. Right, they turn right. Aim, they all aim,” he told the dumbfounded members, whose formal British English proficiency leaves much to be desired.

Mchunu’s grammatical riddle

Minister Mchunu’s explanation before the ad hoc committee was both linguistically careless and administratively/morally indefensible. His attempt to reinterpret the plain meaning of the word “immediately” betrayed a dangerous disregard for language discipline, if not literacy.

In English, words are not decorative; they are instruments of meaning. Nouns establish authority and fact, verbs drive action, and adjectives refine precision. Together, they form the architecture of accountability.

To distort one is to weaken the whole structure. By suggesting that “immediately” did not mean “at once”, Mchunu turned a decisive directive into a grammatical riddle, blurring command into confusion.

The effect was more than semantic; it dissolved urgency into ambiguity, allowing bureaucratic lethargy to triumph, an outcome that is both administratively and morally indefensible.

Champagne darling

Before we rush to draw an adverse inference from Mchunu’s obfuscation, my leader, let it be known that I have never encountered a political principal who works on the eve of the New Year. I have slaved in ministerial trenches for 16 long years, and not once did I receive a directive, memo, or even a WhatsApp nudge from any of the five leaders I have had the (dis)honour to serve.

The date he signed that letter, 31 December, is sacred in the Republic, reserved for New Year’s resolutions, not statecraft. Thus, Mchunu’s work rate stands above the pulpit. He is, indeed, one of a kind: a man who found the energy to dismantle a police task team while the rest of the executive dismantled ice buckets and champagne corks. As an aside, Mchunu holds a BA in Education. I digress.

Comrade or associate?

In a rare crack in his usually composed façade, Mchunu shifted uneasily when the questioning turned to Mr Brown Mogotsi, a streetwise operator reputed for turning bottle tops into profits and WhatsApp chats into investment withdrawals.

With his face set and tone measured, he declared: “I’ve known him as a comrade since 2017, but know little about his personal life…” Then came the clincher: “He is just a comrade, not my associate.”

Indeed, Comrade Leadership, isn’t this odd? Mchunu admits to having known someone for eight long years, yet insists he does not “know him”. What, pray, is the difference between a comrade and an associate? Let's consult the Oxford English Dictionary.

It says, a comrade is “a person who shares one’s activities, occupation, or political ideals; a fellow member of an organisation”. On the other hand, an associate is “a person that you work with, do business with, or spend a lot of time with: business associates, a close political associate”.

Placed side by side, the distinction collapses under its own weight. A comrade implies comradeship born of Struggle and trust; an associate means the same. Thus, Mchunu’s defence is absurd.

Medal for linguistic gymnastics

And just like that, Mchunu, without consulting anyone — as required by the Constitution and the Police Service Act when setting national policing policy — reduced political assassinations to an administrative footnote and their investigation to a cost centre.

It was a bureaucratic sleight of hand, a gibberish manoeuvre that revealed his ulterior motive. The optics, my leader, are dreadful: a man performing linguistic gymnastics worthy of a medal, when his oath of office requires justice.

Till next week, my man. Send me to China to teach English. DM

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