Don’t incense Franco
Top student, eh? God bless.
Franco Debono, bleating on his blog:
Basically if you dont incense Gonzi or if you disagree with him you are insane!
Will somebody tell this cocky little jerk that ‘tincensa lil Gonzi’ does not translate as ‘incense Gonzi’. He says he doesn’t read this website so he won’t read it here.
And while you are about it, please give him the definition of ‘incense’ and explain, as kindly as possible and without undue references to psychiatrists and horse tranquillisers, that he probably incenses Gonzi all the time.
Which means, I suppose and if you follow his argument, that he isn’t insane.
So that’s all right, then.
Imagine that: a top criminal lawyer, member of parliament, graduate of the University of Malta (after a six-year course) and wannabe cabinet minister who doesn’t know that the transitive verb ‘to incense’ has nothing at all to do with the noun ‘incense’, the perfumed stuff used in churches.
With such poor trash are the highest institutions in the land stuffed full.
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Yes I saw the incense cock-up (pun intended) on his blog this morning and I was about to shoot off a comment.
But then I was overcome by a sense of futility. Why bother?
Anyway, he’s too busy fighting the horned stallions of corruption to correct his English.
Daphne you are being unfair.
How on earth do you expect this cock-fighter from Hal Ghaxaq to know the difference between incense, incenza and to incense ?
He just does not have a clue.
And I do not expect him to have one either.
He is light years away from that level. He will never, ever attain it.
Daphne, not very many people in Malta have the sort of grasp of the English language that you have.
I will not give up though.
[Daphne – You don’t need a particularly good grasp of the language to know that when somebody says “I’m incensed” they don’t mean they’ve been doused in churchy scent.]
What is uncanny is that last night I had two sticks smouldering in the yard, a jasmine and a lavender. After half an hour, I remarked, noting the aroma on my shirt, “I’ve been incensed!”
What the heck did you mean with “cock fighter from ghaxaq”?
The whole point is not that he’s from ghaxaq or anywhere else but the fact that he is using the wrong word in that context. Try not to be offensive or stereotypical because someone from the south might be as educated or knowledgable as you are. Maybe even more!
Daphne, qed tghamel ghageb ghax ma jafx x’inhi incense. Zgur ma kienitx fis-syllabus tal-Form 2C dak iz-zmien ghax kienu kien ikun jafha.
Jew forsi meta ghamluha kellu s-serduq mghaxxex u kellu jfalli l-iskola biex jiehu hsiebu.
Think he’s been snorting too much incense.
I’ll repeat this again: ‘Ghadda dan, jghaddi kulhadd, bin man included’.
Stuck in his Christmas sermon is he? He was on Miriam Dalli’s programme last week (the one with a parquet display sampler laid at a jaunty angle), kept going on and on why he isn’t wrong.
The latest piece of tosh refers to Debono’s ‘potent reaction’, as opposed to what?
Maltatoday this morning
‘Reacting in a potent post he penned for his personal blog, Debono was evidently angered by Borg’s own-initiative White Paper.
“It’s about time someone shows the evil clique the feeling when others steal your valid ideas to take unjust credit and condemns you instead… Tonio Borg’s contribution to Maltese politics is a grand nil.”
Debono said he been speaking on parliamentary autonomy for years, and pointed out the “irony” [sic] of proposing the White Paper in the middle of an election campaign.
The MP said Borg had been the Leader of the House for eight years but had never raised the issue of parliamentary autonomy in parliament. “It was only I who had to sacrifice my political career to campaign for a stronger and a decent parliament. Now they put forward my ideas to steal the merit and condemn me instead.”
Tasteless bickering, macho posturing, you name it, seems to be the way forward according to these warped individuals, editors, reporters et al.
Sacrificed his political career, oh really? Here he is, the great reformer, accusing anyone else for his tantrums and backstabbing.
What’s wrong with these men?
The least thing that PM Gonzi wants is to be incensed.
Oops! Franko The Bono 1, Deffney 0 (as in “KMB Zero”).
‘To incense’ is to enrage, Daphne – as in “setting on fire” (Latin: incensus), or to kindle (incendere).
[Daphne: Archaic English; American English – not Daphnatic enough.]
[Daphne – Yes, Kevin. Indeed it is.]
In over your head by any chance?
Okay, the truth now: Franko had intended to remove the ‘dont’ after he replaced ‘suck up’ with ‘incense’.
Allura, miskin, ghax ta’ spiss jizbalja tidhaq bih?
What can I say? Franco incenses me big time. Every time he opens his mouth.
I think the verb he is looking for is “to thurify” or else he just got mixed up… His writing is as funny as one of those Chinglish signs.
I am more or less Franco’s age. A couple of friends and I seem to recall that Franco Debono first started to study law in 1992, then dropped out and joined the course two years later. Does any ex-law student from those times remember this?
Why don’t you focus on criticizing at least one of his proposals, maybe that is a bit more challenging? Or maybe why don’t you try to convince the people that arriva was not a fiasco … so you can disagree with the top student?
[Daphne – I am a communicator by profession, Ozzy, which means that I can’t get past the fact that the medium is the message. Taking your argument to its logical extreme, if Pol Pot were to have made a proposal about party financing, then – by your reasoning – I would have to discuss that proposal seriously without considering the fact that it came from Pol Pot.]
And ,Ozzy, google Pol Pot before replying to Daphne because, no, it isn’t a special make of pots.
Well, in this case Pol Pot happens to make proposals that many people are in favor off. Pol Pot happens also to speak the people’s minds … such as like I said the arriva fiasco. This Pol Pot will hence contribute to the crowds you highly criticize such as ‘Il-Guy’ to be in power.
Therefore the way I see it not discussing the proposal seriously will indirectly be your loss.
[Daphne – The mistake you make is to believe that Franco Debono has a monopoly on these subjects. He does not. Political party financing was not invented with Franco Debono. Criticising ‘the arriva fiasco’ is not a proposal. Franco Debono appeals to people for the same reasons that the Labour Party does, and this is nothing to be proud of. As for your so-called argument, it is typical Maltese ‘ragunar minn s**mok’: when somebody is a total jerk, don’t blame him for being a total jerk, blame others for not keeping him happy. The jerk is seen as somebody without free will, sort of like a dog or a horse.]
What do I care who invented it? It could be censu l-bidwi for all i care. I heard Franco talk about it, my mind tells me that it does make sense, Franco wants it, I want it.. what’s the problem? Why does Gonzi not do it?
[Daphne – That was my point, exactly: unintelligent and uneducated politicians, making unintelligent and uninformed arguments, appealing to unintelligent, uneducated and uninformed electors, while – because there are more of you and them than there are of the rest of us, the rest of us get shafted or stamped on because our views and competencies are not those of the pitchfork brigade (and no, I don’t mean farmers).]
No, criticizing the ‘arriva fiasco’ is not a proposal. But I agree with Franco that Austin should resign… that is a proposal… if that ugly frog cannot do the job maybe he should make way for someone who actually can.
[Daphne – You are incapable of rational thought, and yet you demand a cabinet minister’s resignation because you said so, and because you and Franco think he is ugly. God help us if we were to live in a country run on those lines, where the demands of the unthinking and the barely informed must be pandered to even outside the polling-booth results. Outside of an election or a referendum (which are basically just decision-making mechanisms anyway) democracy is not majority rule, Ozzy. Didn’t you know that? Apparently not.]
.. and I don’t know whether you assume too much but I FUCKEN HATE LABOUR. Bullshit of the labour party does not appeal to me any way. Truth from Franco does.
[Daphne – Oddly enough, I don’t believe you. And only Maltese Facebook chavs write and say ‘fucken’. The rest of us spell and pronounce the word in its entirety.]
Ozzy, Why did he resort to attacking Tonio Borg then?
Aren’t those proposals complementary to his? His reaction simply doesn’t make sense.
Franco Debono has a destructive streak which doesn’t pertain to sane thinking.
Daphne, I disagree with you. If Franco was in the LP, he would have been blown up ages ago. The PN is more tolerant of dissent.
That is healthy politics; we can’t have ‘yes’ men all the time.
That is why the PN is ‘bla bajd’, though I prefer the PN to the PL, because if Labour win the next election, expect nasty revenge and intolerance. We will be back to the dark seventies.
Can’t wait to see his reaction to David Casa’s declaration that he’ll be contesting on Franco’s district.
I would expect such a mistake from someone like Anglu Farrugia tal-Empire Station but not from an accomplished top lawyer like Dr. Franco Debono.
Oh wait, Anglu Farrugia is also an accomplished top lawyer.
If he doesn’t control his attitude, his attitude will continue to control him.
Credentials hung on the wall do not make for a decent human being.
It’s clique not click dear…. Imbasta kollok grammatika u ‘proper spelling’!! But if you’re gutless you will probably remove my comment….. Ugly witch
[Daphne – Ugly witch sabih. Mank kienu kollha bhali il-witches, sugar, kemm jiehdu gost kieku l-wizards. It’s a reflection on your total lack of intelligence that you haven’t been able to work out that yes, probably ‘she’ does know it’s spelled clique but ‘she’ is probably mocking the pronunciation favoured by the stars of our parliament, like Botox Jeff and his Evil Twin Franco, both of whom insist on saying ‘click’ rather than ‘cleek’ because, in Jeffrey’s case, this is how wannabes pronounced it in 1980, and Franco picked it up from him, ghax f’Hal Ghaxaq ma kellomx ‘cliques’, imma klikkek biss. Now run away and play – though preferably not with yourself because that kind of thing can make you blind.]
This morning Malta Today quoted him as saying that the government is in for a bumpy ride.
In a reply to a comment on his ‘blokk’, he said “if that s waht you r waiting for then you are just WASTING this country’s time. then LG should do NOW what is in the national interest!
mela ‘you wait for me to vote against PN’ !
how stupid and egoistic!”
So it appears that he wants to retain the parliamentary honoraria till the very end.
You will love this, you heart breaker.
“It is heart breaking to think that Lawrence Gonzi, aided by his chief strategist Daphne Caruana Galizia denied me the opportunity to continue representing the people of the fifthy district in parliament.” – fd on his blog again
I thought we only had 13 districts, but there you go, I MUST be living in a different dimension.
“Jistghu japprovaw lil min iridu! Jien gejt elett kontra kull tip ta hsara li ghamluli, l-ideat tieghi prezentajthom u xoghli sar. Issa oqoghdu inharqu u ppruvaw ivvendikaw! Ghandhom panik enormi u konfuzjoni manja, u rabja kbira! Ghax fil-polls sejrin hazin immens!
Jien kont addirittura irrizenjajt mil-Partit! Ahseb u ara kemm jinteressani lil min japprovaw!”
For a moment I thought he was heart broken and I had the cheek to accuse you of being a heart breaker.
I think I’d better stop peeping into his blog because some things become contagious and I’m also getting confused.
Without going at all into the merits of the blog in question, the Maltese verb “tincensa” means to offer incense to the gods (or God) or, metaphorically, “to flatter, to adulate” as one is supposed to do when offering incense to the gods. The meaing in English according to Merriam-Webster is:
Definition of INCENSE
: to apply or offer incense to
: to perfume with incense
but also “to arouse the extreme anger or indignation of” .
[Daphne – A completely wrong interpretation, and I don’t mean the dictionary. Try to find one example in English in which “I will incense Tommy/Rita” means anything other than “I will enrage him/her”. In English, there is no literal translation for ‘tincensa lil Gonzi’, and do you know why? Because it comes out of the Roman Catholic tradition. In Protest Britain, nobody gets, still less uses, a reference to an incense burner being shaken around by the priest during mass. Also, it does not fit with the mindset. The translation of ‘tincensa lil Gonzi’ is ‘soft-soap Gonzi’ or ‘suck up to Gonzi’ or more formally, ‘curry favour with Gonzi’.]
Sorry, the wrong interpretation is yours and yours alone but, of course, you’re infallible and an expert on language and any other subject under the sun. Did I mention anything you wrote about in your reply? Did I refer to incensing Rita or anyone else? In Maltese, nevertheless, tincensa lil xihadd means tfahhar b’mod eccessiv and is different from the meaning in English. My English is as good as yours or better. What I lack is your incomparable talent for arrogance.Now, if you want to give it another meaning, go ahead. i gave you the different meanings of the verb in English and in Maltese, period. The rest is purely a product of your hasty imagination. Now you may proceed with your usual denigration of anything or anyone who does not agree with you. Your faithful lapdogs apart, I really think this blog is having the opposite effect to the one you seem to intend. Bully to you. No hard feelings… you do me an excellent service.
[Daphne – You’ve got a fragile ego, haven’t you. Another one of those people.]
Nahsbe li stordieh l-incens. Kemm qal hmerijiet li bihom qieghed ikompli jikteb il-kundanna tieghu.
Possibbli dan ghadu jinsisti li jrid johrog kandidat mal-Partit Nazzjonalista? Jekk u hekk, ara veru MIGNUN bil-provi.
(A) “Basically if you dont incense Gonzi” (Debono)
(B) “or if you disagree with him” (Debono)
(C) “you are insane.” (Debono)
If these three elements form one “coherent” thought, there is only one rational way to interpret (A): starting with the verb element, which is negative, “if you don’t incense” or “do not incense”, means “unless you perfume as sacred” Gonzi.
It cannot mean “to incense” Gonzi, as (archaic) “to arouse to anger” because of the negation. If this second meaning were intended, (A) would have been expressed affirmatively, as “Basically, if you incense Gonzi” to be consistent with (B) and (C).
Of course, instead of “to incense”, the context of the meaning of the verb implies a passive voice (“to be incensed”) rather than the active voice (as a transitive verb, taking the object, “to incense Gonzi”).
In the passive voice, the verb refers to the experiencer, who is the subject of the verb, as in “Franco Debono is incensed.” I am sure that he is. In this case, Gonzi may be similarly incensed: upset or angry.
And in this case, Debono may also mean for (A), “if you anger Gonzi” followed by (B) “or if you disagree with him” then (C) follows. But this latter interpretation is denied by the negative in (A), “if you dont” [sic], in which case, Debono should have said, “if you do,” if that is what he intended.
As it may be, Debono may have intended all of the above, including the fact that HE “is incensed”, which, after all, we have known all along. He seems to be the only one who doesn’t understand this, and his confusing grammatical structures helps no one to understand what he means, including himself in his babbling.
By itself, Debono does have the main verb phrase (non-subordinate verb clause) correct, (C) “you are insane.”
My monolingual (English language) interpretation has not recognized the bilingual (plus Maltese) reality of “tincensa lil Gonzi”, which Daphne has subsequently explained.
For us in practical terms, this means or explains that Debono, for whom English is obviously his second (non-primary) language, also now is incapable of rendering Maltese (translating it) into properly semantic English.
HE got and A-Level in English?