I’m sorry, but I really don’t appreciate lectures or advice on the matter of how to write idiomatic British English from somebody who writes the archaic Maltese form: “I take nothing away from your sterling journalist work”, really?

And yes, you are insufferably patronising and so obviously a (late) middle-aged Maltese man. I deal with them all the time and they generally end up with a rocket beneath them.

Yes, I know there are more important things to talk about and a big part of me said to let this go. I take nothing away from your sterling journalistic work and I mean that in all honesty. And I would almost rather you didn’t publish my comment just so you can reply to it in an admonishing way that detracts from the good work that you do. Lecturing “Maltese people” (and assuming any readers who question your grammar are indeed Maltese) in how to write correct British English is completely unnecessary in the scope and content of your blog postings.

However (yes, there had to be a but), please tell me with hand on heart that you would expect to see a sentence like that in a English langauge newspaper. And I mean one that uses proper English, not The Malta Indepedent.

And at no time in my upbringing being taught British English was I taught that it is correct to use the plural form for money, even when written numerically. It is still a collective noun. You are not talking about the individual 365,000 notes. Yes, I have taken the time to look it up, in case something had changed since I was at school.

“Cash down” is indeed a commonly used term. It is just how it was all put together.

“Konrad and Sai Mizzi paid that £365,000, in cash, for the house…..”
“Konrad and Sai Mizzi paid that £365,000, cash down, for the house….”

At the risk of sounding patronizing, I do indeed enjoy the content of your blog.

Also, Maltese people in general (and I rather suspect this includes you) don’t know that a sum of money written numerically takes the plural form, because it is just a shorter way of writing “three hundred and sixty-five thousand pounds” – which is many units of one and therefore plural.

Hence ‘those pounds’ rather than ‘it’ or ‘that’.

This is true but usually in the UK anyone lending an amount of money for a purpose such as this would want to put a charge on the property to make sure they get their money back when the property is sold. I would.