FAST FOOD outlet, Chicken Slice received a baptism of fire at the opening of its first branch in Bulawayo, with the company being accused of using wrong Ndebele spellings in its advertisement.
PATIENCE RATAMBWA OWN CORRESPONDENT In the much reviled advertisement, Chicken slice says umkwenyana uqobo uyabuya leChicken Slice instead of umkhwenyana uqobo ubuya leChicken Slice, drawing the ire of Bulawayo residents, who feel companies are increasingly contemptuous of their language.
Chicken Slice’s marketing manager, Benardette Mutoko, acknowledged they had made a mistake and were working on it.
“I realise the mistake we made on the advertisement, but I cannot say much on it right now,” she said.
“I can, however, say we will work on correcting it.”
Not to be outdone, mobile services provider NetOne, has also been caught in the storm, after it failed to correctly spell amhlophe in its advertisements, instead writing amuhlope.
NetOne also posted a message in the media congratulating winners of its competition, but it is their misspelling of Ndebele words that has courted the ire of readers.
This has been seen by many consumers as a deliberate attempt to mutilate the Ndebele language, as the same mistakes have been repeated by different organisations.
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“The major question to NetOne is, of the three languages used, why are the mistake occurring in the Ndebele language? Doesn’t the company employ Ndebele people who could have proofread the statement before publishing?” Christian Changemakers said in a statement.
“This is not the first time that a mobile operator writes wrong Ndebele spellings, as Telecel Zimbabwe also has a billboard in Plumtree which has Ndebele spelling mistakes,”
Social media was ablaze over the past two days with users attacking Chicken Slice and NetOne for failing to write Ndebele spellings, saying this showed disregard for their language.
To add insult to injury the number of companies with wrong Ndebele spellings in their marketing and advertising campaigns seems to be on the rise, raising questions whether this was deliberate or sheer carelessness.
Last month, Delta was also caught in a similar storm after it got the spelling of Ndebele names on its share a Coke campaign wrong.
Speak Out, a non-governmental organisation, had to pull down a billboard in October after a public outcry over grammar and spelling mistakes in a Ndebele sentence.
