Please please please find that article about euros that you wrote. You have no idea how exasperated I get when having this argument with people who should know better but instead say something stupid like “My friend has a degree in banking and she told me the plural of Euro is Euro” (Intentional capital letter)

[Daphne – I tried to find it, but lost patience….]

[Daphne – I say euro and euros, whether speaking English or Maltese. I don’t have hang-ups about this sort of thing. Before last January, I never said lira and liri when speaking English, either, even though we were ordered to do so by the socialist government on the grounds that the lira was a new currency and not the natural successor of the pound. The only people I ever heard say ‘this costs fifty liri’ were young shop-girls with a poor education. Everyone else said pounds, probably even you. In any case, both lira and pound originally meant the same thing: a measure of silver.]

Hate to be a nitpicker but you are both right and wrong.
Wikipedia puts it succinctly:
The formal titles of the currency are “euro” for the major unit and “cent” for the minor (one hundredth) unit and for official use in most Eurozone languages, these names are invariant in the plural.[49] These styles are often in conflict with the structures of the national languages. For English language texts, however, there is a recommendation from the Directorate-General for Translation, the EU’s translation service, that the natural plurals ‘euros’ and ‘cents’ should be used in non-legal documents intended for the general public.

And here’s a link to the style guide:
http://ec.europa.eu/translation/writing/style_guides/english/style_guide_en.pdf

[Daphne – I am not both right and wrong on this one, Chris. I am right, as confirmed by your last sentence.]

[Daphne – Read my reply to John Schembri. Never follow linguistic rules when they’re not laid down by a linguistic authority. Since when is the government of Malta an authority on English – the same government of Malta that translates the Maltese word for grandson as ‘nephew’? Or publishes advertisements about ‘privitisation’?]

@ Daphne : you are a good commentator on many subjects , I used to say Euros like you are insisting. But officially it was said that we should say and write Euro also in the plural. There is not much we can do .

BTW : what should we say Centezmi ta’ l-ewro , or ewro centezmi ?

[Daphne – John, are you one of those people who obey others blindly, even when they’re wrong? I suppose it squares with your unquestioning attitude towards religion. The plural of euro is euros, whatever the Maltese government might say. The Maltese government is not an authority on the English language. The only other member state of the European Union in the eurozone with English as a national language is Ireland, and they say EUROS. When Brussels officialdom tried to insist that the plural was to be euro, the suggestion was laughed out of town, not least because people for whom English was not a mother tongue were dictating the English plural to those for whom it is a mother tongue. Forget what the government of Malta says – most of them know English only as a language learnt at school, anyway. As for the cents – why distinguish between euro-cents and other cents when there’s only the one variety in circulation? Just say cents and centezmi, for heaven’s sake. That’s what I do.]

[Daphne – You’re wrong. The plural of euro is euros, not euro, just as the plural of dollar is dollars and the plural of pound is pounds. I had written an article about this, but can’t find the link.]

Jesus was right. This was written with the MLP gripers in mind, MLP people who want to do nothing for this country but grumble and nag at imagined slights. Tistghu mhux iddumu tbarqnu bhal hamiem, ghax bikom jew minghajrkom nimxu il-quddiem. Halluna !

U John Schembri Zurrieqi bhali. Imma ma nafux. Biss nirrispetta dak li jikteb. Mhux dejjem naqblu, imma nahfirlu ghax minn pajjizi :)

As for education, Labour made a mistake way back in the 70s, which it tried to rectify by introducing the Junior Lyceums.
Students from Junior Lyceums were getting good results, good enough to enter Church Sixth forms, what happens, we remove the junior Lyceums and introduce the Colleges, where students are thrown together without any plan. Why do you think Dr.Galea was not reelected into Parliament? Do you think it was a coincident that the parents of children from Zurrieq and the surrounding villages refrained from voting for him as they usually did, after he introduced the first college in that district?

@ Mario Debono Is John Schembri your secretary, or are you the same person. I think gangerine is spreading through you brain filling you with hatred toward anyone who is not blue all over.

Hmmm! Tempting!I suspect that the 10 year olds would give it more serious thought. At elast they are still at an age where they ask questions!

Let’s face it both parties use the 16 year olds on the campaign trail, both on the stage and in front of the Great Leaders, to make tehir party seem young and full of vitality. As to the level of maturity of the 16 years old, as opposed to 18 year olds, I repeat it is much of a muchness.

Frankly i really don’t think it would make any difference to the election results one way or the other. For every 16 year old who will vote red because his or her parents vote red there will be another who will do the exact opposite. And for every youth seduced by the youthfulness of the Labour Leader, tehre will be another conservative youth in search of stability and job security.

This is a bit of summer fun, before the serious business of politics hits the fan in October.

It is really no great shakes.