Yes, xelin is shilling in Maltese. Hence my reference to sixpence above (nofs xelin). If I know what a habba is I can’t see why a man in his twenties doesn’t know what a xelin is. For chrissake, the secretary-general of the Labour Youth Forum knows what a xelin is. The point being that if a young man like Saliba knows what a xelin is, there is no reason at all for someone like Antoine Vella to attempt to belittle him.

The carlino formed part, also, of the copper coinage of the Order in Malta. As did the grano (or grain, in english) a coin of much lower denomination than the carlino. It was known as the habba in Maltese. Hence the expression, as I know it, “ma jiswiex habba”, which is far more demeaning than a carlino and even more so again than a sixpence. Six grains was equivalent to half a penny.

I can’t help wondering what sort of world is inhabited by a man like Antoine Vella who appears to have a problem with someone like me using an expression which dates back to the time of the Knights. It’s part of the joy of language. As for informing us that his 23-year old son doesn’t even know what a xelin is . . . I remain speechless.

[Daphne – I don’t think mine know what a ‘xelin’ is, either, John, because they’ve never heard the word used in conversation and the currency is completely alien. ‘Shilling’ they would have picked up from here and there, but they missed out on ‘xelin’ altogether – unless they learned it at school. People my age would be the last lot to know shillings and pence from experience, and to have worked out simple maths problems in that currency – and we were 10 when Malta went decimal. Lots of my contemporaries don’t even remember that 12 pennies made a shilling or that 20 shillings made a pound. We missed out on guineas completely, though I remember my mother using this strange and wonderful word and explaining that it was 21 shillings. And though I knew of the word ‘habba’, a coin which had long since gone by the time I arrived, I had no idea until fairly late in life that it was indeed a coin. I only knew the word through a commonly used expression in my family: ‘qisu tal-habba gozz’, meaning somebody scruffy, messy, unkempt. Is ‘xelin’ a corruption of ‘shilling’?]

@ john

Yes, I understood Antoine’s point, and I don’t agree that there’s something wrong with using expressions containing outmoded monetary systems – the expression is part of the language. The carlino ceased to be legal tender ages ago.

My point is that this Alex Saliba doesn’t even know the proper expression. But I stand to corrected: is there an expression “ma jiswiex nofs xelin”?

Antoine is querying the use of expressions containing outmoded monetary systems. It was in this vein that I posed my question. I hasten to add that I am not enquiring about the size of his prostate.

As far as I know, the expression is “ma jiswiex karlin” – the carlino being a former currency in Italy.

But I stand to be corrected.

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100319/letters/airtime-on-bondiplus

It would be a wonderful tool had such a study existed but it doesn’t and unfortunately it will be difficult if not impossible to do because the good quality data from each country needed to carry it out is just not available.

It is a pity that people who should know better cobble together bits and pieces of statistics in a pseudo-scientific way and publish articles in the popular press (serious scientific journals would just bin them) and these then end up getting quoted as being the bees knees of medical science

There is no denying that there are differences in the incidence of certain diseases in Malta with some regions showing a worrying trend. Thankfully there are now medical scientists and statisticians in Malta who are steadily increasing the quality and quantity of public health science in our country

Having said that, one should experience the evening air of Dubai before commenting on pollution in Malta

Some people are doing PhDs at 22. So what’s Alex Saliba’s excuse?