Author

LAURI KUBUITSILE
Correspondent
  • The joy of being average

    The answer lies in being average. Average, by the definition of most dictionaries, is the quotient obtained by dividing the sum total of a set of figures by the number of figures. This is its definition for the purposes of mathematical sciences. For...

  • What do you want to know?

    So did the last two chief justices of this Republic, the current speaker of parliament, the current leader of the opposition in parliament, and the current and first woman to be the permanent secretary to the president. In other words, and...

  • A veranda

    But, it may, for a moment, discard its propensity to be too ordinary if for instance, through a fortuitous discovery, we find within our homes a place of stunning juxtaposition: a place where we struggle most ardently with our thoughts and...

  • A thing called inspiration

    Consider these few examples. Kenyan playwright, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, a perennial contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature, wrote his first three plays over a period of three years, beginning in his mid-20s. While this feat was on its own...

  • It's not what you think it is

    There is nothing utilitarian, appropriate and elegant to wear on a wrist than a watch. By common acknowledgment, a wrist watch is considered to be the most precise and best engineered thing in micro-engineering. For the price of a dinner for two, a...

  • May we borrow your youth?

    For Botswana, that day happens once every five years. So it was that on October 30, 2024, we, the qualifying citizens of this country, were voters willing to sit in a queue for up to two hours, quietly bearing the late spring heat, while chatting...

  • The challenge of getting men to be friends

    In his book, “Buddy System: Understanding Male Friendships,” Geoffrey L. Greif writes that the significant difference between male friendships and their female counterparts is that men have shoulder-to-shoulder relationships while women have...

  • Would you like to have a good life?

    But you still cannot explain what was happening to your intellect then...until you stumble upon them again in late life and in some sense experience your own epiphany. This was exactly the case with me as I was drawn, in the beginning of the year, to...

  • Dumped, but still in love

    This typically prompts us to accept, often grudgingly, that our future henceforth will not be based on them being present in our lives. Instead, it will be based on rejection. That is when “dumped” becomes more than a mere adjective in everyday...

  • Listen to what you’re saying!

    A veteran English professor at the University of Michigan, Anne Curzan, is a linguist. Her new book, “Says Who?” argues that our choice of words in the English language is determined by context, and that this context is often cultural or based on...

  • What is there to like about winter?

    Here in Botswana, although unbearably hot, summer is the ploughing season; autumn, significantly drier than summer, is a season of feasting on the bounty of the soil; and spring, a prelude to summer, is the season for budding plants. Each of the...

  • Thank you for being crafty

    Craftsmanship is: the graceful and methodical movement of hands; the occasional pause needed for hands and the head to work in unison; intense concentration to work out the intended product; and the inspiration and execution needed to generate a...

  • You must judge a book by its cover!

    But, everyone who now talks excitedly about “content” must know that they really draw on the nature of, the reason for, and the appeal of books.In any case, only books contain a contents page and at the beginning for that matter! Inside them,...

  • Music for the Dying

    But there is music playing in the background. That music is classical music. This is the music of the medieval period, past through the Renaissance era, beyond the common period, the 20th century, and right up to the present postmodern period.It is...

  • Funny you should say that!

    But occasionally, a word or expression will transcend mere fashion and preference and have character, a zeitgeist for the year we are in. Enter the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the world’s most authoritative English language dictionary, and its...

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