A reminder of some of the rules for posting comments on this website
This website does not allow:
1. the use of exclamation marks, which are deleted wherever they are noticed;
2. the use of ellipses (….), which are untidy and indicate untidiness of thought; be precise and use a dash, a semi-colon or a full-stop followed by a new sentence;
3. the reduction of anyone with two surnames into a cypher-set of three initials, because it will not kill you to write out a person’s full name;
4. reference to the prime minister as ‘JM’, which is now happening all the time; if you can’t be bothered to use his full name, or substitute ‘the PM’ for ‘JM’, then do the proper thing and use his surname;
5. reference to the prime minister and the leader of the Opposition as ‘Joseph’ and ‘Simon’; they are not our class-mates or our drinking-buddies, but the prime minister and the leader of the Opposition – so if you must use only one name, do the proper thing and make it their surname;
6. Facebook and SMS shorthand;
7. Smilies;
8. bad spelling and lousy grammar – please review your comment before pressing the ‘submit’ button; educated adults are expected to write like educated adults in all circumstances, even the internet.
Thanks to you readers, the comments-board is one of the key attractions of this website, for positive reasons rather than the negative reason that pulls people to other comments-boards so as to shudder at the rampant stupidity, chaotic thinking, vile spelling and even viler ignorance.
I’d like to keep it that way. Thank you.
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Sorry, Mrs Caruana Galizia. But Eddie used to be Eddie. And Guido used to be Guido.
[Daphne – You are quite wrong. They were always Fenech Adami and Demarco to me, because that’s the sort of world I grew up in. I never heard any of the adults around me talking about ‘Eddie’ and ‘Guido’ as though they were in infants school together.]
And Mintoff used to be Mintoff. And KMB used to be KMB. And Doctorsant used to be Doctorsant.
[Daphne – Again, they were never anything other than Mintoff, Mifsud Bonnici and Sant to me and mine.]
I’m a bit lost now …
(The ellipses is not because I’m not precise in my thinking, but because I am very precise: I’m lost!)
[Daphne – The singular is ellipsis. In any case, what political leaders ‘always were’ is irrelevant. Civilised people refer to them by their surname, not their first name.]
WTF !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-)
I love post-irony.
And also writing in Maltese. This is not timesofmalta.com
[Daphne – Oh, I don’t mind that.]
This is a very good idea.
I think I only broke rule number 1, which is very rare. I do press the send button prematurely sometimes without reviewing what I have written, leaving some prepositions or conjunctions out.
Daphne, I’d love to see some of the comments from LP supporters you censor. I bet you they break all the above rules.
[Daphne – There are almost none. Now that they are in power, they feel they no longer need to insult and disparage me. Insulting and disparaging me was tactical strategy for undermining my influence.]
Well that’s Eddy Privitera out of our lives then.
[Daphne – Not really, no. He’s an icon of the Maltese internet, so I allow him to be himself.]
Caps and all?
He is a character that’s for sure, and the internet — for as long as it exists — will be forever etched with his outrageous comments for centuries, if not millennia.
I shudder to think what the sociologists of the 25th century will be saying about this gentleman; what will they say he symbolised? The pinnacle of freedom of speech?
The access to the public domain of a private citizen and the far-reaching nature of their commentary on just about any subject?
With all the methods of control that governments can employ in controlling people’s thoughts, it would not surprise me if we have indeed reached a milestone in human history and maybe this man exemplifies it. God help us.
Brilliant and well done. Wish all others in the media would follow suit.
OMG…..EP (Eddy Privitiera) is going to be effectivvely banned from this sight!!!!! He is always praising JM, insulting Simon, USING CAPITAL LETTERS and mutiple exclamator marks!!!!!!!! He going to wake up and smell the cougheee!!
LOL ROFL :)
Does that include “would have” and “should have” instead of “would of” and “should of”?
[Daphne – Yes. It also includes the use of ‘would’ and ‘shall’ instead of ‘will’.]
Surely you will allow an acceptable measure of poshness in those who still insist on using ‘shall’ as a substitute for ‘will’? Some old fuddy duddies may get cross about this one.
[Daphne – http://grammar.about.com/od/alightersideofwriting/a/shallwillglossary.htm%5D
I will take that as meaning that both will still be accepted. Both ‘English Grammar in Use’ and ‘New English File’ have ‘shall’ down as a rather virtually unused future form; it still says that it can be accepted though.
Think ‘fish’ ‘fishes’.
[Daphne – Fishes is a plural form that indicates different varieties/species. Fish is a plural form that just means lots of them, generally of the same kind.
‘Shall’ is not defunct. In the construction of the interrogative form, largely for the first person singular and plural, it can’t be replaced by ‘will’. Shall I go? Shall we buy that? Shall I get the blue one or the red one?]
I was only referring to the use of ‘shall’ as substitute or alternative to ‘will’ as a future simple. There, it’s use is archaic but it still makes me chuckle in delight when I hear an older Maltese or Anglo-Indian, who learnt proper imperial English under the British, use it.
Of course ‘shall’ can also be used when asking for instructions and decisions: ‘shall I open the window’ (Practical English Usage, Swan, Oxford University press, 2013, page 193).
As for th last point, ‘”fish” has a rare plural “fishes”, but the normal plural is “fish”‘ (Ibid., page 516).
Please make an exception for me. Here goes.
I want to powst as many smajls as I want because now that the PL is fil-Gvern u JM huwa l-kbir Prim Ministru taghna I am pozitiv, pozitiv u pozitiv!!!!
:) :) :) :) :)
Ja qatta mdejqin ta’ SImon…
U jekk ma ggibilix din il-powst hawn ingibha fuq il-FB ta’ JPO cause that one is democratic and jemmen fil-freedom of spijc!
Owkej DCG!!!!
Ha nibghatlek iktar :) :) :) :) ja negattiva!!!
Some politicians prefer to be known by their first name since it makes them more of a “household figure”. Boris Johnson always brands himself as Boris for example, while Labour always address him as Mr Johnson to counter this.
That’s specifically why it was “Eddie” and “Guido”, especially in the dark eighties. With Eddie particularly, the Nationalists (and all those of good will) felt he was one of them.
I’m really enjoying reading the idiotic comments going against all those rules you just posted. I’m not sure if they’re trying to be funny or their own version of ironic.
Most of the rules are sensible but I do not understand the categorical exclusion in all cases of exclamation marks.
In my younger days, the school I attended — a public (government) one — boasted teachers who were absolute sticklers for punctuation and I’m still grateful to them for what they managed to teach me. At that time, English was the most important subject in the curriculum. The exclamation mark has a place in punctuation. May I suggest this link which is both succinct and clear?
http://grammar.yourdictionary.com/punctuation/when/when-to-use-exclamation-marks.html
[Daphne – The link you’ve given here explains exactly why you shouldn’t use exclamation marks, and not why you should. Basically, they’re childish. In fact, all the examples of exclamation-mark-use which the site gives are ‘teenage’. Wow this and wow that. English is extremely precise, and one of the hallmarks of being able to use it well is being able to use it precisely. Aside from the fact that British English is the language of a culture that does not allow for excitability and in fact disapproves of it (unlike American English), and hence exclamation marks are deeply at odds with its nature, there is no need of them. If you can’t make your point without the crutch of an exclamation mark, then you haven’t used the language well. Precisely because of this, in any form of professional writing – journalism, fiction, academic papers, biographies, and so on – exclamation marks are an absolute no-no except when between inverted commas in quoted speech (and even so, they are frowned upon). At most, you might find a couple in books for infants.]
The use of ellipses was not encouraged but they too have a place, especially to insert clarifications in the text. I would submit that the judicious use of them should be permitted.
This blog is yours and you may upload or trash any contribution but rule by diktat where grammar and language are concerned has proved to be ineffective or counter-productive whenever tried. I hasten to add, though, that bad grammar or misuse of vocabulary should be actively discouraged. As to pronunciation…well that is a matter on which volumes could be written and this blog is written not spoken.
[Daphne – Basically, I wish to avoid all the things which make other comments-boards so trashy and uninspiring. I have identified what most of those things are, and I am going to stick to it. Anybody who comes in here with Facebook shorthand, smilies, mile-long ellipses, exclamation marks, multiple interrogation points, and cruddy spelling is going to have their comment edited or deleted.]
Daphne!! You used “basically” … the infamous non-word! I’m shocked!! :-O
Seriously though, those are very sensible rules. Thank you.
I agree with these rules. The internet is currently the wild-west of grammar and syntax.
Try find an explanation why Privitera calls Simon Busuttil by his first name and Joseph Muscat as Dr, Muscat.
Do they really think that it is demeaning to be called by your first name instead of taking it to mean familiarity?
Eddy Privitera
If these are the arguments Simon hopes to convince voters, God Help the PN !!! Dr. Muscat will blast his arguments up to now, so easily !!!
(Times comments board)