In The Telegraph yesterday: ‘Selling EU citizenship by the euro’
There’s a mistake in the title of this piece, but let’s not get bogged down in that.
When you sell something ‘by the pound’, that’s a reference to the imperial measure of weight, not the pound sterling or the currency used to pay for it.
But the point being made is clear.
Tiny little Malta recently announced proposals to start selling citizenship rights for €650,000 a pop. Many countries in Europe, including Britain, have similar schemes, but this one breaks new ground. In all other cases, the applicant is obliged to reside in the country for a minimum number of years before being granted a passport, and in Britain’s case, he/she is also obliged to invest in a company.
For Malta, it’s simply a case of pay the fee and get the passport. Now Malta is I’m sure a nice enough place, and no doubt there are some in the world willing to pay this stonking great price to go and live there. But essentially what’s being sold is not the right to Maltese citizenship, but to EU residency. Once in possession of a Maltese passport, you can live and work anywhere in EU.
Charging for entry might seem preferable to the present influx of illegal immigration, or myriad different loopholes that the rest of the world uses to gain access to prosperous European economies. But it’s plainly something of a joke when a tiny little Mediterranean island can, in effect, line its pockets by selling rights to go and live and work in London.
No doubt those fine fellows in Brussels will soon be taking steps to “harmonise” the whole process of citizenship, thereby further infringeing the sovereign state’s right to choose who it allows in. Another headache for David Cameron as he wrestles with the challenge of how to claw back enough powers from Europe to convince British voters that they should stay in.
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http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jeremywarner/100026264/selling-eu-citizenship-by-the-euro/
Not particularly for printing- Daphne, the headline was a play on words and not incorrect use of the saying.
[Daphne – Yes, I know. That’s the point I made. It’s a play on words rooted in a mistaken interpretation of ‘selling something by the pound’. Hence, selling something by the euro doesn’t make sense. You can’t sell something BY the euro because the euro is not a unit of measurement, but a unit of currency used to pay FOR it not BY it. That’s one that got past the sub-editor. Plays on words have to be idiomatically and grammatically correct like everything else that is published. And that is quite apart from the fact that it doesn’t make sense.]
I think it’s a kind of double play on words. It’s the latest in cutting-edge British humour. Private Eye does it all the time.
Try this for size: “Give the man an inch and he’ll take half a million.”
Who says you can’t by things by the Euro? I always buy fuel from the Service Station by asking for 50 Euro worth and never by volume.
You are quite right in that the pound in the saying refers to weight rather than currency but that just makes the word-play better.
Sigh ….. how much more embarrassing can these headlines get!
[Daphne – Re your assertion that you buy petrol by the euro: you don’t. You buy it by the gallon/litre, and that’s exactly how it’s priced. It’s just that the pump system works out the equation to save you the hassle of working out for yourself how many litres you’re getting for your 50 euros. Not to be anally retentive about it or anything, but when things are sold by volume, by weight, or by the metre, they are sold by volume, by weight, or by the metre FOR X euros. Sellers don’t measure out their goods by the euro: even your petrol pump measures out the volume it’s giving you by the litre. You’re confusing the idea of ‘buying something by the euro’ with ‘buying 50 euros worth of petrol’, which is different. I like British English because it is so precisely nuanced.]
The new manner of producing pre-paid postage on envelopes demonstrates your point clearly. The envelopes are bought in a packet of x for x price, or individually. The stamp area no longer marks the value on the image of the stamp, which can change, but the maximum weight that can fit into that pre-paid envelope without adding further postage value.
That’s an interesting idea. I always assumed that “selling something by the pound” referred to the pound as a unit of weight and not currency. It never even occurred to me that people would understand it as referring to the pound sterling.
That said, The Telegraph’s title does make for a bit of catchiness, so I can forgive them the twist on words. Chalk it up to artistic license.
Joseph Muscat once boasted he would make Malta the best in Europe. He certainly made us the most talked about, but, sadly, for all the wrong reasons.
Thank you Joey, you’ve just given the British voters another reason to vote UKIP in the next general election and another reason to vote “Yes” to leave the EU in a referendum.
Maltese in the news!
http://corrieredellumbria.corr.it/news/home/132862/Barca-di-15-metri-trasportata-sulla.html
http://www.euractiv.com/trade/french-mps-look-strategy-build-e-news-532277?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=EurActivRSS
“Many countries in Europe, including Britain, have similar schemes, but THIS ONE BREAKS NEW GROUND. ” (my capitals)
The ‘Tagħna Lkoll’ movement will most probably take this — again literally — as a compliment.