I’m only posting this because I’m interested in the argument, knowing full well that, at this point, most probably no one else will see this.

You said you can’t say ‘United country’ in English. By that logic, you can’t say ‘United Kingdom’ either since ‘Kingdom’ is a singular noun. I think it’s clear that it’s the entities of the Kingdom which are being described as United, as would be the case for a ‘United country’.

Also, in Maltese, we say ‘Renju Unit’; However, searching for “Renju Maghqud” on Google shows that those exact words were used in various official EU law translations as “Renju Maghqud tal-Gran Brittanja”. That would be incorrect according to you (Not sure who is right though, because I’m sure there are mistakes in the Maltese EU law translations.)

I admit that I was wrong in the ‘Gnus maghquda’ case. I didn’t realise you’d said that “*One thing* cannot be ‘maghquda'”.

On second thought, I just realised that ‘gnus maghquda’ is already referring to the plural ‘gnus’ and could very well have been written as ‘gnus maghqudin’. Above, you did say “One thing cannot be ‘maghquda’ unless the meaning is ‘congealed’ (united with itself) ” though, which clearly doesn’t hold here.

That being said I still believe that ‘pajjiz maghqud’ is the best way to say ‘united country’. It might not be strictly correct grammatically speaking, but language evolves, and I’m sure the former is understood perfectly well by all Maltese speakers.

[Daphne – Gnus Maghquda is the plural form. You can’t say ‘a united country’ in English, either. It doesn’t make sense.]

@Anthony III

Yes exactly that. In black and white.

What message?

Thick as in a short plank?

[Daphne – That’s what I keep telling them Cicero. It doesn’t mean united in the singular, because one thing by definition can’t be united with itself.]

Biex ikollok cans tirbah lil Franco trid:-

1. tivvota kontra il-gvern tieghek stess fil-Parlament (ghax issa Franco ma jistax);

2. tirraprezenta lil partit l-iehor fuq Xarabank kontra il-Vici kap tal-Partit tieghek stess;

3. tippretendi li int Roberto Baggio taghmel xaghrek HORSETAIL u toqod tigri b’xi ktieb tal-Buddha (l-ewwel wahda difficli ghal Franco);

4. tkun minghalik l-isbah wiehed biex tkun tista tghajjar lil xi ministru ikrah;

5. tkun L-aqwa wiehed u kull min immerik ikun hazin u allura tiggielidlu;

6. thalli lil min ma jaqbilx mal-PN ikesksek qiesek kelb tal-glied;

7. u meta ma tiehux dak li trid, trid tarmi it-toys u l-gazaza min gol-pram u toqod titbaqbaq u twerzaq.

That’s the underlying message.developed over these four years.

Meritocracy a’ la Labour as the antidote to Franco’s oligarchy. Why everyone deserves a chance in life.

Franco barely hides it, the prototype of Joseph’s target.

Still, Franco refuses the movement.