Labour complains because hospital is 'not yet functioning to the detriment of patients'
My advice to the Labour Party: give your Maltastar staff copies of Lynne Truss’s punctuation guide Eats Shoots and Leaves.
Then dispatch them to one of the many schools which teach English as a foreign language.
Or just sack them all and shut down the bloody thing.
I’m convinced that many of the people who visit Maltastar do so only to cackle at the errors. Those mistakes and the utterly horrid writing do much to undermine Labour’s attempts at building for itself a serious and credible image.
Here’s one of today’s offerings. I apologise if I’m going to annoy you by taking it apart, but clearly the Labour Party can’t afford EFL lessons for its people, and I’m feeling generous this evening after a pleasant day at the beach in the September wind (I love it).
THE GOVT IS DENYING YOUNG PEOPLE FROM TAKING UP NURSING AS A CAREER – LABOUR SPOKESMAN FOR HEALTH, DR MICHAEL FARRUGIA
1. That should be Government denies young people a nursing career, or Government prevents young people from taking up nursing.
2. But this raises the question: is the government allowing only old people to become nurses?
3. At least they didn’t say ‘youths’, having apparently taken on board my EFL lesson on the difference between young people, youth and youths. It’s nice to know they’re listening, even if they can’t stand my guts.
The lack of nurses in Malta is a known fact, says Labour Spokesperson Dr Michael Farrugia.
1. If it’s a known fact, then we don’t need Michael Farrugia to tell us.
2. Reporters, more so those in the pay of the enemies of the government, should not hang around waiting for Michael Farrugia to tell them there’s a nursing shortage. They should go out and get the information themselves, possibly along with some facts and figures.
3. Spokesperson is not a proper noun.
“This scarcity is leading to a decrease in the level of service in the country, to the extent that certain areas in Mater Dei Hospital are not yet functioning to the detriment of the patients who need the service. Understaffing in the sector is leading to the early burn out of many as well as to high levels of stress.”
1. Sack these people. I mean, really, sack them. Their inability to punctuate a sentence properly means that the man who aspires to be minister of health after 2013 has been quoted as COMPLAINING BECAUSE THE GENERAL HOSPITAL IS NOT YET FUNCTIONING TO THE DETRIMENT OF PATIENTS.
2. ‘a decrease in the level of service in the country’ – as opposed to what, the level of service in town? The level of service in the sea? The level of service in Sicily or Libya?
3. ‘the early burn’ – would this be related to the early bird, perhaps? And how did you get it out of many? Hyphens serve a purpose. Learn what that purpose is. I assume you know what a hyphen is, but I fear you might think it’s a ‘dash’.
According to the spokesperson, it was only a few weeks ago that the Government of Lawrence Gonzi claimed that one of the factors that is highly problematic in the health sector is the lack of nurse.
1.According to the spokesperson? Why, do you mean to say that the Labour Party doesn’t believe its own politicians and so must qualify their statements?
2. The spokesperson? You know he’s a man, for God’s sake. You don’t have to check. So if your people must insist on referring to Michael Farrugia as though he’s the cat’s father instead of using his name, at least tell them to be gender specific. The world has moved on from chairpersons.
By the way, Maltastar team: when are you going to tell us that Michael Farrugia has left the home he shared with his wife and has for the last few months been living with his girlfriend in what Malta Today would describe, but doesn’t because he’s Labour, as ‘the home of a well-known bookie in Wardija’? Well, as long as it isn’t a trip on a private jet or a jaunt on a yacht….Ma, x’pajjiz. Imagine if this were to happen in Britain: SHADOW HEALTH MINISTER DITCHES WIFE FOR MISTRESS AND TAKES UP LEADING BOOKMAKER’S OFFER OF FLAT IN POSH ENCLAVE. Were he a British politician, he wouldn’t have been able to organise his adulterous trysts in that time-honoured unimaginative manner, either: popping in to see his secret mistress on the way to the office. Well, he wouldn’t have done it here, either, if he had any idea just who lived in the same street and clocked his arrival and departure. Gives new meaning to the term ‘a quickie’, I can tell you.
3. The Government of Lawrence Gonzi? Now this is a fine piece of literal translation – il-gvern ta’ Lawrence Gonzi – but it doesn’t work in English, sorry. If anything, it should be Lawrence Gonzi’s government (that’s called ‘the possessive form’), but here’s the thing: English is the pragmatic language of a practical and clear-thinking people, so saying ‘Lawrence Gonzi’s government’ implies that there is another government, owned or run by somebody else. The only possible response to ‘Lawrence Gonzi’s government’ or ‘il-gvern ta’ Gonzi’ is: “Oh, is there another one? I hadn’t noticed.”
4. The lack of nurse? What, only one? In that case, you should use the indefinite article. Look it up. I’m too irritated.
5. One of the factors that is highly problematic in the country – I have counted three references to ‘in the country’ in this short piece, but may have missed others. This is the literal translation of ‘fil-pajjiz’, but in English it means the place you go when you wish to traipse through mud wearing tweed and wellies. You can’t translate ‘fil-pajjiz’ into English because the very concept doesn’t translate. In English, and this reflects the English mindset, if you’re talking about something happening here then there’s no need to specify that it’s happening here, still less repeat it in every other sentence to drive home the point to your audience that you’re talking about Malta’s general hospital and nursing shortage and not, say, Turkey’s. One of the factors that is highly problematic – oh, you mean one of the problems.
Dr Michael Farrugia reminded everybody that around five years ago the same Gonzi Government had claimed that there was over-employment of nurses and as a result graduate nurses ended up registering for employment for a number of months. In the meantime, the stipend of those still studying was reduced in order to discourage others from enrolling on this course.
1. Apparently, when Michael Farrugia ‘reminded everybody’, he also reminded Maltastar’s reporters, and they hung around waiting for him to remind him before they, in turn, reminded their readers.
2. Gonzi Government: see above.
3. Graduate nurses: are there any other sort? Amateur nurses, perhaps? Pretend nurses, maybe?
4. This reads like it was written by somebody in the third world who has learned English by correspondence. It’s too complicated to explain why it’s the equivalent of something I might have trotted out in a French essay 30 years ago (La plume de ma tante…), and doing so will just ruin my evening. So I’m going to have to disappoint you here.
It is a known fact that the health sector needs more nurses, says the Labour spokesperson. On the other hand, there are a substantial number of young people and others who wish to take up nursing as a profession and have applied for courses in the nursing profession.
1. See 4. above.
2. Why would people apply ‘for courses in the nursing profession’ if not because they ‘wish to take up nursing as a profession’? If they wish to become, say, hairdressers, then the usual course of action is to apply to the hairdressing school, not the nursing school.
3. There IS a substantial number of young people. There ARE many young people.
“The only problem is that these individuals are now facing the numerous clauses set by the Gonzi administration. Year after year, a number of young people are not being allowed to follow the nursing courses they wish to take. The intake is not enough to cater for the needs of the health sector in the country where about 700 nursing positions stand vacant.” Dr Farrugia said that the number of grandaunts annually is only sufficient to replace those nurses who retire or leave the profession.
1. NUMEROUS CLAUSES? NUMEROUS CLAUSES? SACK THEM! SACK THESE PEOPLE NOW! It’s numerus clausus, you damned fools. http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Numerus_clausus
2. ‘a number of young people’ – how many? Your job is to find out and tell us.
3. ‘the health sector in the country’ – I live in the country and I can see no health sector beyond the garden wall. Perhaps it’s lurking in the bushes with Marisa Micallef.
4. ‘the number of grandaunts’ – ah, I get it. The Government of Lawrence Gonzi really is keeping out the young people to let in the old ones. You can’t become a nurse unless you’re a grandaunt. Granduncles should protest at once to the Equality Commission.
5. This is a thoroughly complicated and unidiomatic way of saying that the general hospital needs another 700 nurses but the government has restricted entry to the nursing course.
6. Jobs do not stand vacant. Buildings do.
7. ‘Follow a course’ – another literal translation from Maltese. In English, courses are taken and not followed. To follow a course, you would have to get it to race on ahead while you toddle along behind.
The Labour Spokesperson insisted that the Government should wake up to the reality that the country is facing and make every effort so that those students who have the necessary qualifications to take a nursing course and who wish to do so, are accepted on these courses which will lessen the pressure on the current situation and ultimately solve the problem once and for all. In this way, the patients, elderly residential home uses and the community in general will benefit.
1. Spokesperson is not a proper noun. Government isn’t, either, but it is now an acceptable exception to the rule.
2. You’ve forgotten to point out that the government should smell the coffee after waking up.
3. That sentence is just terrible. I don’t know where to begin. If you were my students (and yes, I was an EFL teacher when I was 21) I wouldn’t just give you un bel zero, but put a rocket under the lot of you and send you to hell. This is what is known as a hopeless case.
4. Elderly residential home uses? Do we have many elderly residential homes here? And surely their sole use is to house people?
To misquote Pink Floyd:
Who let all this riff-raff into the room? Get ’em up against the wall. If I had my way, I’d have all of you shot. With water-pistols, to be sure, but still.
MALTASTAR HEADLINE: DGC MAKES TREAT TO KILL MALTASTAR PEOPLE: STOP OR I SHOOT, SAY SHE
It makes you long for the days when you could say that the barbarians were at the gate. Now it’s just the frigging intellectually challenged morons with their grandaunts and their numerous clauses. There they are at the gate armed with rotten grammar and a low IQ. And where’s the drama in that?
The dunces have taken over the asylum.
DGC SHE CALL MALTASTAR STUPID. BETTER SHE LOOK IN THE MIRROR.
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“Good evening, and here is the news from the BBC” Dong……….
My personal favourite from this debauchery of the language is “grandaunts” – classic ‘spelling as you are thinking’, without bothering to check afterwards.
[Daphne – The sort of person who works for Maltastar will not know what a grandaunt is. The average Maltastar-type person does not have the nouns to define family relationships beyond parents, grandparents, offspring and siblings. They have been raised in social environments where family relationships are defined in these terms: Joey taghna; Doris ta’ hija; ir-ragel ta’ ohti; Mary ta’ Karmnu, and so on. I’ve deliberately left out grandchildren because they think they’re nephews – even if they’re girls. NOTE TO MALTASTAR; a grandaunt is either your grandparent’s sister or married to your grandparent’s brother.]
I don’t believe it. Numerous clauses…how the f**k did the proof reader miss that? It doesn’t even make sense. I never studied Latin, but even I can translate that to number closed or closed number and, in context of what was said, “limit”.
This writing proves that the Labour media have been trolling their own voters for years.
IS there a proofreader in the first place?
Am I to understand that Michael Farrugia moved in with Marie Angelique?
[Daphne – WHAT? How does that follow? For heaven’s sake, she’s not the only person who lives in Wardija, or the only girlfriend in Malta. And she may have had a chequered career, but she’s never been a bookie. Please don’t tell me you think a bookie is somebody who, like Marie Angelique, writes books.]
No, I just tried to figure it out from the following : “when are you going to tell us that Michael Farrugia has left the home he shared with his wife and has for the last few months been living with his girlfriend in what Malta Today would describe, but doesn’t because he’s Labour, as ‘the home of a well-known bookie in Wardija’. ”
[Daphne – OK, I’ll spell it out. He left his wife for his mistress, had nowhere to live, and a well-known bookmaker (not a person who makes books, but a person who takes bets) who lives in Wardija gave him a home on his extensive estate. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt – maybe he pays the bookmaker rent, but somebody should tell him that living there is not a good idea because it has IMPLICATIONS and is COMPROMISING. What a country, honestly.]
If I’m not mistaken, Farrugia left his wife and five children more than two years ago.
[Daphne – Yes, about that. That’s not the interesting bit though, even if I do believe that electors should be told instead of having salient information like this concealed from them (I certainly would never vote for a man who leaves a home with five children – disgusting). The more relevant point politically is that he was offered shelter by a notorious bookmaker and took it. Whether he pays token rent or not is irrelevant. He just shouldn’t be there.]
Maybe Michael Farrugia is receiving hot tips from his bookie friend.
On a different note, this morning I saw Angelik (tal-Madonna ta’ Borg In-Nadur) and quoting you “words fail me”, because now he has gained a lot of weight and also has marks all over his arms, as if tattooed.
I asked a friend whether he is still popular, and he told me that it is even stronger than before because he has large gatherings every Wednesday.
That such a person with that personality can gather so many followers and attention is beyond belief.
[Daphne – I don’t know why you’re surprised. Look at the number of people planning to vote for Joseph Muscat.]
I am even more surprised to hear traditional Nationalists saying that they will votefor Muscat because now they have had enough of Gonzi and ‘we need change’.
And on the other hand you hear hard-line Labour supporters stating that they will not vote at all because Muscat is not like Mintoff but too soft to oppose the government.
How anyone can look at Joseph Muscat and his two lapdogs and think, even for a second, that they can do a better job of it, leaves me speechless. The fact that many will be regretting their loyalty-switch within a year is of no consolation either.
If Joseph Muscat and his two lapdogs sleep throughout all the legislature, they would still do a better job.
What’s even stranger is that many people are claiming that the Partit Laburista is our only real option, and keep on projecting the image of an ultra-conservative oppressor onto the Nationalist Party in order to prove their point.
Some go as far as to say that we need the PL to form a government in order to save us from this oppressive regime.
Then we have members of the PL who needed to consult their priests in order to be OK with being in favour of divorce and others who say that they would rather live in Iran.
And then we get Dr Muscat telling us that these are healthy disagreements. What liberal leader does not even have liberal followers? I would not be surprised if the liberals are in the minority in that party.
The President spoke about the need for a definition of “the family” and seemed to have left out same-sex partners (along with single parent families too I might add), and yet the party he is from is supposed to be in favour of gay marriage.
If you are going to stand for something you must stand for it through and through. None of this half baked nonsense. If you are going to be a Liberal leader, then every part of your party must think as a Liberal. Is that so hard to understand?
One side of the PL says one thing, but another side say the opposite. The usual supporters cheer for the good old days of Mintoff while the new supporters are convinced that the PL is going to liberalise Malta and will stop at nothing to convince themselves that the PN is oppressive and dictatorial – even though it was a member of the PN who put forward the all-sacred “private member’s bill” on divorce. And it is the PN which has an openly gay member of parliament. These new Labour supporters are acting like they will vote for anyone, all in the name of change, regardless of who they really are voting for, as long as that person says they are liberal.
And to make things even stranger, about a week ago supporters of the PL were going door to door in Lija asking the residents if they wanted to sign up to be members of the PL. Another one of their very liberal ideas.
I was asked if I was interested in joining the PL. I’m not sure what he meant by that, and I didn’t ask. The man speaking to me went on to tell me that Dr Muscat wanted them to go round the village and ask people if they wanted to join. I don’t understand what they were trying to do. Is the Labour Party trying to be exclusive? Has it become a members only club? Are they that desperate for votes? It left most of the village very uneasy. Some people found it to be rather sinister too.
Jesus, D, Maltastar owes you big time.
Hopefully they’ll go back to school, you know, the one THEY call ta’ nuna.
If they went back to school, they’d probably find teachers with language skills similar to theirs and I’m not kidding.
That’s what you get with this ‘jekk inti Malta tkellem bil-Malti’ attitude that so many Maltese have. We’re meant to be bilingual (yeah, right) and yet I know a civil servant who was actually reported to his superiors for answering the phone with a polite ‘good morning’.
The following day a circular was sent to all concerned with instructions to answer the phone with “L-ghodwa t-tajba”.
So don’t expect things to get better.
Tan-nuna…
This isn’t really an English language lesson. On that front you seem to repeatedly concede exasperated defeat.
And it seems unfair you only want to offer lessons in journalistic style and presentation to Maltastar, when other newspapers are similarly in need. The Times may not be as badly written, but that is only a matter of degrees. I never read the Labour site, because it completely unenlightening and irrelevant. It is quite impossible to live abroad and keep up with Malta affairs without reading the country’s paper, however, which is they should be held to a higher standard – or some standard at least – and subjected to this kind of mocking scrutiny.
Peter, this is not just about bad writing. What is politically significant is that the Labour Party is content to let its news site be run in such an embarrassingly illiterate manner.
The country’s “main” paper that should have read.
It should also have read “degree” mate
If you are going to unwarrantably correct my comment, have the decency to punctuate, you tedious and fatuous buffoon.
[Daphne – Grow up, Peter. Leave your hang-ups behind. You’re an adult now. And don’t try to be Jeffrey Bernard, because it doesn’t wash when you’re from Malta.]
I will stop trying to, uh, be Jeffrey Bernard when Andrew Borg-Cardona quits his cringe-inducing impressions of P.G. Wodehouse. How about that?
This write-up, which DCG has rightly reduced to smithereens, is the nadir of maltastar.com. At least I hope so.
At this point, a warning from the Education Department is solicited :
“Maltese citizens intending to sit for examinations in the English language are hereby strongly advised to avoid maltastar.com and timesofmalta.com like the plague.
Failure to heed this advice could prove to be seriously detrimental to the citizens’ performance in the above-mentioned examinations
In fact, it most certainly will be.
You have been warned. If you persist in following these websites, please do not blame Gonzi’s government when you get stuck with numerus clausus.
Just blame yourselves.”
Daphne if you carry on at this rate you stand a good chance of turning into a verb. Pretty much like “to google”.
“To daphne….” = to give English language newspapers or websites a good rollicking for the poor standard of their English.
I find it hilarious but I see your point that anyone employed by these organisations must at least have a fair command of the English language. As for the rest of us I am much more inclined to be lenient as I have met many people from different countries who struggle to express themselves in English.
“Numerous clauses” (numerus clausus) and “grandaunts” (gradauts) are probably the results of a spellchecker. I wonder how Maltastar would be without spellcheckers.
“The only problem is that these individuals are now facing the numerous clauses set by the Gonzi administration. ”
When I read that I thought that by ‘clauses’ they meant terms and conditions or something like that, as in clauses of a contract or an insurance policy and such.
“Maltese citizens intending to sit for examinations in the English language are hereby strongly advised to avoid maltastar.com and timesofmalta.com like the plague.”
Maltese citizens intending to be Christians are hereby strongly advised to avoid DCG’s Running Commentary
Maltese citizens intending to become good English-speakers (and also good Christians) are hereby strongly advised to read DCG’s Running Commentary every day – like Zebbugi is doing.
Tal-grandaunt bellezza…
Apart from the language I think one needs to discuss the issue as well. The article shows what the party thinks about education at tertiary level. They are still in the Mintoffian mindset that you go through university to eventually find a job.
If there is no job then you don’t need education (remember what happened to university under Labour). Also, they assume that because we need more nurses then the solution is to accept more students in the course, stuff standards and quality, just allow more students into the course rubber-stamp them through and hey presto we have a solution.
Whilst the numerus clausus might need to be removed to allow more students in, we need to ensure that there are enough resources at university to ensure quality.
There is also another explanation and that is that like other professions, the nursing profession is seen by Labour as something anyone could do so the course is just a formality.
Remember what Labour did when the teachers protested, they offered a job to anyone who would go. I’m not joking, untrained people just went to schools and got a teaching job. These people remained in our system for years and if I’m not mistaken were even given teachers warrants eventually.
And we have come a full circle, it could very well be that the Maltastar journalists were probably taught English by one of these people.
[Daphne – No, you can’t really blame the teachers. The trouble is with the curriculum. They should have been taught English as a foreign language and they were not – that, and the obvious problem that they are not exposed to any sort of writing that could help them.]
My wife and I were both born and bred in Sliema. Ironically the worst English language speakers in Malta come from Sliema, but!
[Daphne – So do the best.]
“Gives new meaning to the term ‘a quickie’”
Ah, well then he’s merely imitating the French politicians. Chirac was a serial philanderer and the French secret service personnel used to call him “Mr Three-minutes-including-shower”.