You could say the same of the university from which he graduated.

Even worse, he can’t string a sentence together. The first part of that self-description, up to “contexts” is extremely clunky. The rest makes no sense whatsoever.

What in God’s name is a “staunch agenda”? And “however” used to join sentences, where “but” should be used? It’s a Maltese linguistic deficiency on which I intend to write an entire tome in my declining years.

“Following suit”?

“Notoriously peppered”?

“The” taboo?

“Arrays”?

“Often bordering on an [huh?] artistic political activism”?

You see, the problem isn’t Tanti. After all, this country is knee deep in linguistically challenged graduates and professionals. The problem is whoever let him get through the filter and gave him a teaching job. And I don’t just mean the school. He was teaching drama with Masquerade before he ever became a supply teacher.

Perhaps he meant “ulterior motive”.

In Malta there are many people who have transposed maternal or better-sounding surnames to “hide” their real one.

This is ultimately a matter of principle: a father’s son’s son’s son’s etc etc son should have the same root surname. The root is your “gens” in terms of Roman law.

Any other surname is one “of pretence” (usually the “pretence” is a claim of proven inheritance). By appending, you’re still acknowledging your root surname because that’s the first surname.

In a simplified way:- It’s OK to append but it is not OK to pretend your mother/grandmother’s surname is your father’s.

In this way someone called Cassar Borg Agius Zammit might have as grandparents Cassar (paternal) Borg (paternal grandmother) Agius (maternal grandfather) Zammit (maternal grandmother).

He could add on several hundred surnames or even call himself Cassar Zammit for short, but his/her real surname should still be Cassar, not Borg or Agius or Zammit, nor anything else.

In Tanti Palmier Stuart’s case his real surname will always remain Tanti. If he says otherwise then it’s another sad case of what he wants to be and how he wishes to be seen, rather than the reality.

Oh, that’s poetic licence.