Kemm hawn ghaqs: they’ve collected around EUR750,000 between them
I’m flicking between the two fundraisers on Net and Super One.
I can’t say that the entertainment on Net is a stylish cabaret – it’s quite scary at times, especially the parade of MPs lining up with their constituency donations received by the party leader (Robert Arrigo took care not to be showy and excessive and gave 600 euros) – but the hamallagni on Super One is just unbelievable.
When are they going to put that Mary Spiteri and Renato out to pasture? They’re both raddled and over the hill, Renato has been reduced to wearing wigs, and he looks effing ridiculous in his sequinned shirt and John Travolta 1970s get-up.
Something else – why is Michelle shoving her twins in the public eye, when she says she doesn’t want them discussed? And why is Edward Zammit Lewis competing by sticking his own daughter in between them, while Tuks Farrugia gets to have them jump on his lap?
As for Ray Azzopardi, that other mejda tal-qubbajd with the microphone, don’t get me started.
Where’s Super One chairman Jason? Have I missed him, or is he sulking somewhere?
Given the horrible line-up of ghouls on the telephone-answering bank, I really do wish the comperes would stop using the word ‘kant’ repeatedly.
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Jason Micallef? Here he is:
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=100904973319993&set=a.100904969986660.961.100002014713620&type=1&theater
He must have heard someone say ‘kant’.
I noticed that he did not post any message on his wall about today’s collection…
Maybe he’s cheesed off that the maratona overshadowed his festa ta’ tifkira mimlija talent mill-aqwa. A recording was screened right after the maratona.
Very funny. Go and take care of your dogs.
[Daphne – My, how touchy. Stuck to this blog, ready to pounce and take offence.]
Why did Joseph Muscat keep mentioning the Yellow Pages? “Ghax ahna ma nsibux nies minn fuq il- Yellow Pages”
It must be because he reads MaltaToday.
http://maltatoday.com.mt/en/opiniondetails/blogs/opinion/Yellow-Pages-a-broken-computer-and-a-220-million-BWSC-contract
what exactly does ‘għaqs’ mean? Jeez learn your spelling! oh I see since ‘q’ in english sounds like ‘K’ like in ‘queen’ you just assumed that the ‘k’ sound is also ‘q’ in Maltese… typical convent school mistake…
[Daphne – Tal-pepe people say ‘ghaqs’ not ‘ghaks’, in the same way they say ‘dahqa’ not ‘dahka’. Now you know. It’s not a convent school mistake; it’s just that people who say ghaqs not ghaks tend to go to convent schools – not now, though, because now they’re full of people like you.]
The independent schools are full of “ray camilleri”-type people too. One particular chavtastic one – after the schoolchildren were asked to donate money to a children’s home with the specific intention of buying cinema tickets for the boys there – decided to treat all the (17?) children to a free film at his cinema instead.
It quite defeated the purpose of the original request for donations, ie that of teaching children to give to the less fortunate, and instead gave them the quite unwelcome lesson that “one must boast when one gives to charity”.
Ray, do you say “Ghakal fit-tmexxija”?
Ghaqs reflects Labour’s message well. It is half-way between Ghaks and Ghaqal.
I thought it was some misprint.I never heard anyone say ghaqs.
The verb derived from the word Ghaks is Ghakkes.
I cannot imagine anyone saying “GhaQQes” or “MaghQus”,especially in a convent school where Maltese was not allowed to be spoken.
I tend to say ‘daħqa’, not ‘daħka’ and ‘serduq’ not ‘serduk’, but ‘għaqs’? I never heard anyone say that in five and a half decades.
Sorry Daphne, but you’re wrong. If you’re going to insist on people using correct spelling, then it’s ‘għaks’. It derives from ‘għakkes’ – to oppress/inflict misery. You know, there’s no wrong in admitting a mistake. People will respect you more for it.
Jekk joghgbok Daphne, hawnhekk jew tikteb sew jew inkella tikteb xejn……pls irrispondini bil-Malti, fik siegha zmien
But Daphne you must not write as you speak…that’s what you say at least.
[Daphne – Written Maltese was invented in the 20th century and reflects the pronunciation of those who invented it. Take the word ‘tghid’, for instance. Tal-pepe people say ‘tajdt’. Most others say ‘tejt’. Almost nobody says ‘tghid’.]
But that is the pronounciation of the words not how they should be written. then by such argument the whole bunch of articles regarding how worlds should be PRONOUNCED (online dictionary if you want a defintion) must be nullified. then by the same argument we should accept the English spoken langauge of Labour MPs since it is only a form of saying words just like tal-pepe is for Maltese. I can’t imagine you speaking in front of the magistrate with such Maltese. I wasn’t expecting that you have such confusion in your mind about an argument on which 80% of your articles are based on. This is a very sensitive argument, because such mentality that a Maltese tal-pepe should exist is one reason why the Maltese language is on a downfall and you should be ashamed of yourself that you disrespect a sensitive argument as this is.
[Daphne – Would that you wrote and spoke English as well as I write and speak Maltese, my dear. Tal-pepe do exist. And yes, we do speak differently, not just in terms of accent but also in choice of words and use of complete, well constructed sentences. Deal with it.]
Gino,
Il-q li tinhass k, l-aktar fil-bidu tal-kelma, gejja mill-kleru, l-aktar dawk mill-Kottonera.
Katt inzertajt xi Monsinjur ikanta ‘Kalb Hanina’?
“Use of complete, well constructed sentences”- Are you sure about this, in the same paragraph….take a look at what you wrote: “Would that you wrote and spoke English as well as I write and speak Maltese, my dear”- Does that make any sense or that it is COMPLETE and well structured? I dealt with it.
[Daphne – ‘Would that you wrote and spoke English as well as I write and speak Maltese, my dear.’ Yes, that is a complete, grammatically correct sentence. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with that sort of construction. A rough idiomatic translation into Maltese might be: “J’Alla kont taf tikteb u titkellem bl-Ingliz daqs kemm naf nikteb u nitkellem bil-Malti, qalbi.” The ‘would that you’ in this sentence stands in for ‘if only you’]
It’s actually working class people who make the worst linguistic messes, Gino.
Trid waterrrrr?
Trid taghmel toilet?
Meta ghandek il-birday?
Fejn tmur school?
Immorru niehdu coffee l-Ferries?
(A real tal-pepe person says “Trid ninzlu x-Xatt niehdu kafe?”)
The list is endless. And shameful.
Daphne, it must have been really painful having to watch PL’s maratona. Why do you do it? Is it just so that you can comment about it later in your blog or is there a masochistic streak hidden away somewhere?
As for me, I did try to watch parts of it but I could not stand it for more than a minute.
It was more than 750,000 in the end:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20111214/local/fund-raisers.398234
PN, PL raise €803,880 in televised marathons
Tonio, people come here to read Daphne’s opinions on the Maltese socio-political environment, and surely not to learn Maltese.
Her English is very good, but her Maltese leaves much to be desired. Just the simple fact that she insists on ignoring Maltese diacritics is proof enough of this.
Why else would she write “mohhom”, with two aitches, and not “moħħhom” (see the next blog post)? Simple: by her reasoning, three-letters-of-a-kind should not be written in the same word, alongside each other.
[Daphne – Kindly don’t be tedious. My Maltese orthography is actually near perfect. Apart from growing up in a blingual family, I went to St Dorothy’s Convent, which adopted the same strict approach to spelling and grammar for English and Maltese. Also, it should strike you as obvious that somebody whose English grammar and spelling are near perfect is going to have pretty much the same attitude to Maltese. I will not bring social background or level of education into this equation because it upsets so many people. However, it is a fact that – precisely because of those two factors – my Maltese is far more correct than that spoken and written by people who write for, say, the Maltese-language newspapers or comment on their Facebook walls. The reason I don’t use Maltese letters when typing is because I couldn’t be fagged to make this blog compatible with Maltese fonts. It isn’t a Maltese-language blog, after all. I assume that when you send a text message on your telephone, you don’t cross your aitches either. The trouble is that people like you and this Toni Privitelli just can’t stomach the fact that you’re confronted with somebody who is truly bilingual, and can speak with perfect idiom in both languages. Unfortunately, many of the people who are ‘proud of their Maltese’ either speak a false, textbook version of the language or the dialect of the seriously uneducated. My Maltese does not “leave much to be desired”. It is the Maltese of a social class which politicians and members of other social classes, together with the Akkademja tal-Malti, have attempted to force out by imposing instead the dialect and idiom of people from other backgrounds. Until the day I die, I will refuse to succumb to any sort of pressure to speak or write working-class/lower-middle-class Maltese.]
“I couldn’t be fagged to make this blog compatible with Maltese fonts.”
You don’t need to do anything for the site to support Maltese characters. Use Unicode. You’ll just need to momentarily switch to the Maltese keyboard layout (if you’re using Windows) and your [ automagically become ġ and so on.
[Daphne – As I said, couldn’t be fagged. I never use Maltese fonts in my working life. And that’s quite apart from the fact that I oppose those slashes and dots on principle and believe that the person who invented them should have been shot for assuming that all Maltese people are born stupid and so need a special alphabet for the handicapped.]
Do you know what a font is? “Maltese fonts” have been obsolete for quite some years now, and I sincerely hope there isn’t anybody still using them today.
I wouldn’t go into the merits of Unicode, because you really wouldn’t be “fagged”, but do you know what a keyboard layout is? And do you know that other countries exclusively use keyboard layouts other than the average US/UK keyboard you are currently using? I’m not only talking about the physical keyboard with keys labelled with characters from that particular language.
Your blog is already compatible with Maltese characters, as you can see from people’s comments who used them.
[Daphne – I think it should be obvious to you that I used the word ‘font’ when I meant ‘character’. I work primarily in print, where reference is to fonts, not characters. No, this blog is not compatible with Maltese characters. It will not take Maltese characters in the headings or captions. As for all the sarcasm about keyboards and layouts, I find people like you extremely tedious. I have been working with computers since 1989, and despite my enormous age you would be seriously misguided in classifying me with the average mum who has a Facebook account. Please accept the fact that I am not interested in using Maltese characters, and swallow it whole. As I said, the person/s who decided we should have a different alphabet to the one we were accustomed to already should have been shot. Those dots and dashes serve no sane purpose. They make no sounds different to those which exist in, say, Italian, which is dot-and-dash-less. I will use the dots and dashes when writing, but I am not going to bend over backwards – even if it means adjusting my touch-typing – to stick a dash on an aitch just to keep some dead linguistic pervert happy.]
I work primarily on screen, where reference is to fonts and character sets. It would be incorrect to refer to Maltese characters as Maltese fonts.
About the dots and dashes, have you ever noticed that the ‘i’ has in fact a dot, as does the ‘j’. They would perfectly do without them, but they still have them.
[Daphne – I can’t understand why you are so defensive. I believe in making things simpler, not more complicated, and I understand that with people who work in your particular field, that too is the aim. j and i have dots because that is the way they are; they do not have dots to distinguish them from a similarly shaped letter with a completely different sound. English assumes a person’s ability to read a word as a picture, rather than ploughing through the syllables, and just there you had an example of this: ‘ploughing through’, with the same ‘ough’ but completely different pronunciation. Also, written English developed naturally over time and is not a language developed by committee. Written Maltese – Maltese in general, nowadays – is very much a language developed by committee and it shows. It assumes that everybody is an imbecile and must be told by means of a dot on the z how to pronounce, say, zghazagh, because otherwise we would all run around getting confused and pronouncing it with a TS sound.]
In Turkish, there is an ‘i’ without a dot, which is the ‘ı’. Did you ever notice that other languages have other diacritics, and they have a very sane purpose and are perfectly useful? Do you have an y insight into languages other than Maltese, English, Tal-Pepe, and Italian? Maltese does not come directly from English, and so the alphabet it derives from should not be by default the English alphabet, as you so think.
[Daphne – The thinking and motivation behind all languages is the same: to make communication possible. ‘Insight’, as you put it, into these other languages is completely unnecessary. It is necessary only to know that they developed naturally over time. Written Maltese is unique because it was literally invented by committee within living memory. If you were to bother looking up newspapers from the first half of the 20th century and even later, you would find that spelling involved no fancy dots and dashes and followed the Italian system. The only problem this created was that there was no specific letter for the KH (Q) sound, but it actually wasn’t a problem at all, because – just as when reading English we can differentiate between ‘plough’ and ‘through’, so people reading Maltese back then could distinguish between a C or K that indicated a KH and a C/K that indicated a C/K sound.]
Do you know the difference between the ‘ġ’ and ‘g’? And the difference between the other letters and their respective diacritic form?
[Daphne – Of course I do. Anyone who is capable of mastering idiomatic English finds Maltese extremely simple by comparison. Maltese is actually ridiculously easy compared to English (though I have the advantage of having been exposed to it from birth). Sometimes I think that all these dots, dashes and anally retentive fixations are an attempt to make a very simple language appear more complex than it is.]
I must say, you keep on impressing me…..even at times when all you should do is just admit you made a mistake and shut up, you find a way to self-praise. How come do you describe yourself as bilingual whilst in other articles you categorise yourself with ‘tal-pepe’?. This is confusing.
[Daphne – That I am tal-pepe and bilingual is not self-praise but a statement of fact. Tal-pepe is a term which was used originally to describe people born and raised in Stella Maris Parish, Sliema (which I was – fact). That I am bilingual is also a fact. I think and speak with perfect ease in both languages, though I find English more interesting and useful because the creative and expressive scope is much greater.Tal-pepe has been widened in meaning to take in the wider social grouping to which the original Stella Maris parish residents belonged (a certain type of family originally from Valletta, who summered in Sliema). These people all spoke English and Maltese. Unfortunately, people like you tend not to know of the existence of this particular social group, which is facing extinction under several onslaughts, and have come to believe that tal-pepe means ‘people who can’t or won’t speak Maltese’. How wrong you are. The reality is that most real tal-pepe were pro-British (and so spoke English) and supported the Constitutional Party (and so spoke Maltese in opposition to Italian). You’ll find, I think, that the sort of people who claim they can’t or won’t speak Maltese are in fact the descendants not of tal-pepe people, who were mainly merchants and army officers and public servants, but of the professional classes who supported the Nationalist Party and favoured Italian. That is certainly my experience. You need to learn a great deal more about the complex society you live in, Gino, instead of taking at face value the prejudices of your social and political class. It would be impossible for me not to speak Maltese perfectly, given that I was raised in a Maltese-speaking household.]
Daphne are you serious, basing such an argument on such a great number of assumptions. This was a bad day for you, must have been.
[Daphne – They’re not assumptions, but extrapolations from a couple of decades of experience. Now, if somebody comes along and tells me that they were distracted and closed the show abruptly because the Super One chairman was having a heart attack in the wings, then I’ll reassess my views.]
And just to give you a clearer view, tal-pepe, are people who have such confusion in their mind to the extent, that they can’t even identify when they should speak one language or the other, so they just speak both at the same time.
[Daphne – Actually, Alex, those are chavs with money who sent their children to private schools and bought flats in Sliema and ‘houses of character’/villas elsewhere. That’s a completely different social group, but you wouldn’t be able to make the distinction. Real tal-pepe speak either English or Maltese, and our Maltese is better and more correct than the Maltese spoken by the working-class, quite simply because we tend to have had a better education. That our English is also better goes without saying, for the same reason.]
Whatever floats your boat, but you should begin discovering your origins after half a century on earth. You really should.
[Daphne – I know my origins rather better than most.]
Agreed, Daphne.
Has anyone in the Akkademja ever wondered why no one manages to get it right, except for those who use it to work?
Vassalli himself would be at a loss, upset at the inverted snobbery behind this sham. If the design was political, it worked, the condescendence being the perfect signature.
Well said, Daphne.
Why do you think I should care how many languages you can speak with perfect idiom, my dear Daphne, and why do you consider this to be a confrontation at all? (Well, it wasn’t – now it is).
All I did was point out that you’re wrong to insist that “għaqs” is correct when it should be “għaks”. Is it so difficult to admit to a mistake, dammit? By the way, your “idiomatic” translation, “J’Alla kont taf tikteb u titkellem bl-Ingliz daqs kemm naf nikteb u nitkellem bil-Malti, qalbi” is not idiomatic at all. It should be “IMQAR kont taf tikteb…”. So much for the perfect Maltese idiom…
[Daphne – We say ‘J’Alla’, though I have noticed the attempts to eradicate this piece of screamingly loud evidence that Maltese is really just Arabic with bobs on. Idiomatic translation is NOT literal translation, Tony.]
More examples of the ghaqs (or ghaks) which abounds:
1. I ordered furniture three weeks ago from two different establishements – I was told to forget it before Christmas because they have too many orders and consequent deliveries and are not managing to keep up;
2. I tried booking a top-notch restaurant for a dear friend’s birthday for six. The booking was for a weekday two weeks ago. I was told that it was hopelessly fully-booked and that there was a waiting-list.
3. Trying to find a good place for lunch in Valletta for foreign clients without having booked is next to impossible – mid-November not bang in the Christmas period;
4. And my pet example: try having your nails done with less than a week’s (and I’m being conservative) notice.
And these are but a few off the top of my head.Not to mention the telethons, including L-Istrina, bond issues and all sorts of events which go on to show that frankly we’re really not badly off.
You forgot the thousands of fuel-consuming-cars on our roads. Il-veru ghaqs, or if you wish, ghaks