I’m sorry to have to break this piece of news, but these invitations have gone out already

“The Prime Minister and Mrs Muscat request the please of your company”

“in honour of the Commonwealth Business Forum 2015”

The jury is still out on “the please of your company” – let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and say it was a typing error. But for God’s sake, did nobody notice in the entire printing and invitation mailing process?

“in honour of the Commonwealth Business Forum 2015” is definitely not a typing mistake. Back in the dark ages of civilisation, consulting a protocol officer – does the government still have any? – used to be standard to avoid bloopers like this. But now, apparently not. So people who were not raised knowing these things, and who never bothered to learn them along the way (“U ejja, mhux xorta”) use their own judgement and their own judgement is…well, never mind.

An event can only be in honour of a person or persons. That is what “in honour of” means: you are honouring him, her, or them. “In honour of” does not mean the same thing as “to celebrate”, “to mark the occasion” or “on the occasion of”. It is not interchangeable with those other expressions.

This invitation, with its “request the please” and its “in honour of” a conference would have been cringe-making whoever issued it, but coming from the Prime Minister (and spouse) of the host country, it is crawl-into-a-hole-and-die material.