Africa-Press – Lesotho. English has never been our mother. It abandons us in times of trouble, especially when cornered. The best time to judge a person’s eloquence in English is when they are in distress.
Walim Ashraf, the man accused of stealing M7.4 million, lost his English bundles last week when he was caught in a blue lie. His bail hearing was going well until a DCEO investigator told the prosecutor that he was emitting lies with a straight face.
He had told the court that his three children and wife were in South Africa. He even added that children were schooling in South Africa. That sounded plausible and the court appeared to have taken his word for it until the prosecutor announced that his wife and three children were in fact in India.
Bingo! Caught in the lie, Ashraf mumbled an apology before telling the court that “it was a slip of the tongue”. In other words, his tongue has slipped and called South Africa India.
At that moment, Ashraf believed that claiming that your family is in South Africa when they are in India is a “slip of the tongue”. The phrase he was looking for is: “I am a pathetic liar”.
A slip of the tongue is a minor mistake in speech, not a fictitious relocation of your family from India to South Africa. Muckraker will not pass judgement on his charges.
Suffice to say Ashraf is an Arabic name meaning ‘most honourable one’ or ‘very noble’. Tongues that claim to have slipped when they are lying are not so noble.
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