Your children are not your siblings: Your brothers and sisters are
WE are into will-writing this weekend, but this should not cause us to believe that our end is nigh, much as it will come, one of these days.
The writer, who penned the editorial titled: ‘Why framing will is crucial’, and which appears on page six of the popular daily of May 29, encourages us to write a will and stop thinking that doing so is taboo and a premonition of beckoning death.
He opens his piece by reminding us of the obvious: ‘We must all agree that no man is immortal meaning that at one point in life, you and I must return BACK to earth where we came from’. ‘Return back’ is a mistake we make so often.
But, for the zillionth time, we need to remind ourselves that ‘Return’ is adequate and stands on its own. It does not need the support of the word ‘back’. ‘Return home’, not, ‘return back home’. ‘Return the book to its owner’, not ‘return the book back to its owner’.
In the case of our editorial writer: ‘we must one day return to earth’, not, ‘return back to earth’. The writer goes on to explain: “We must have all heard of cases, where some people rise to claim ‘ownership’ of estates, wealth and other rights of a dead person to the extent of hiring lawyers and washing dirty linen in ‘the’ public, simply the dead person never thought or ignored writing a will and there ‘are’ wealth to be shared”. The above sentence has a number of shortcomings.
One, it has an idiom which is edited (a taboo). Two, it is missing key words in some part. Three, it has phrases which are repeated.
Four, it assumes the word ‘wealth’ is plural. So, our surgical action is: One, to remove the article ‘the’ from the idiom ‘washing dirty linen in ‘the’ public’. Two, to introduce a number of words in the part of the sentence reading: ‘simply the dead person never thought or ignored writing a will’.
Three, to avoid repeating the phrase ‘dead person’; and four, to give the word ‘wealth’ a singular form. Here we go: ‘We must have all heard of cases, where some people rise to claim ‘ownership’ of estates, wealth and other rights of a dead person to the extent of hiring lawyers and washing dirty linen in public, simply BECAUSE the DEPARTED never thought OF, or, ignored, writing a will and there ‘IS’ wealth to be shared’. Incidentally, the phrase: ‘there is wealth to be shared’ could be rewritten into: ‘there are assets to be shared’.
As he concludes his editorial, the writer urges us to think of our children: ‘For instance, if you have any ‘minor’ children consider who would take care of them should something happen to you and their other parents, otherwise untold sufferings will ‘ascend’ to your ‘siblings’ from people (read relatives and friends) you never thought would salivate for your wealth’.
‘Minor children?’ As a result of their age, children are minors. ‘Young children’, would be a better description. ‘Sufferings will ‘ascend’ to your siblings?’ Surely bad things or calamities do not ‘ascend to you’.
They ‘descend on you’. They befall you. Yes, you do not want bad things to befall your children. But your children are not in the category of your siblings. Your siblings are your brothers and sisters.
So, let us re-write the sentence: ‘For instance, if you have any young children consider who will take care of them should something happen to you and their other parents, otherwise untold sufferings will ‘descend’ on them from people (read: relatives and friends) you never thought would salivate for your wealth’.
Since the word ‘siblings’ does not stand for your children, we have substituted it with the pronoun, ‘them’. Yes, the advice about writing a will is super, but, no, I am not getting myself to write one tomorrow.
lusuggakironde@gmail.com
