Intervention
I have to get this off my chest. I just can’t stand it anymore. Because of the Libya crisis and all the meetings and so on, it’s either being used more or I am noticing it more often.
And it’s irritating me no end.
ADDRESSES, SPEECHES AND COMMENTS AT CONFERENCES AND SO ON ARE NOT ‘INTERVENTIONS’.
There is no such usage of the word in English. This is Maltese ‘English’ at its most disastrous, when a wrongly-used word is widely used and so assumed to be correct.
Then the situation feeds on itself and worsens, and even people who should know better begin to talk and write about ‘the Minister’s intervention’.
It’s enough to make me break out in hives.
‘Intervention’ is the noun of the verb ‘to intervene’. Intervening means coming between two things or butting in/acting to stop something happening or to correct a situation.
You can intervene in a fistfight between two other people.
You can intervene in the crisis in Libya, with warplanes and bombs.
You can intervene when two people are arguing, to set the record straight.
You can intervene when a family member has an alcohol problem and organise treatment.
You can perform a surgical intervention on a cancerous growth.
At a stretch, there might be an ‘intervention from the floor’ when somebody is speaking at a press conference, and even that implies an interruption to the proceedings.
But when a cabinet minister or whatever stands up to speak at a conference, this is not an ‘intervention’, not unless you learned English formally (but not properly) in a classroom and as a second, third or fourth language.
So please, please, please, stop using the word. Above all, you will be imperfectly understood. Those who are not Maltese like me, and so able to understand that you are translating the Maltese ‘intervent’ literally, will have to pause to work out exactly what you mean.
So do yourselves (and the rest of us) a favour and just stop it. Please. In English, people speak. They do not ‘intervene’.
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Dr. Tonio Borg’s “intervention” with Frattini:
Dr Borg informed Mr Frattini of yesterday’s visit to Malta by Libyan deputy foreign minister Abdul-Ati al-Obeidi.
He told Mr Frattini that the Maltese government insisted that there was no solution to Libya as long as it continued to be administered by the current administration.
Eureka, Tonio Borg! So why do you still recognise the “current administration”?
Didn’t Frattini tell you to get off your high horse and shove this “current administration” into the garbage bin once and for all? Stop playing a double game. You are shaming us all.
This comment should be directed to and heeded by English language teachers within the education system. For some reporters it is by far too late and even if they read the above, they will often succumb to their otherwise unchallenged daily misuse of the language.
Yrs, as is the regretful use of the term ‘compilation of evidence’, for example
Personal peeve: Use of “Traffic DEVIATION Ahead”.
Instead of DIVERSION.
Without any consulting, AFAIK something deviates when it does so of its own accord, and when it is diverted, it does so because something causes it to.
Oh, and over-(mis)used phrase of the moment? “Level playing field”. Generally, by people or organisations who are decidedly at the uppermost end of a highly un-level field of play, when they perceive the slightest attempt to actually level the field a little.
The difference between a surgeon’s intervention and a local politician’s is that in the former you’re given anaesthetic.
Another similar situation is the use, particularly in Maltese, of the word ‘variation’ – for example in a shoe shop advert claiming to have ‘variazzjoni ta’ zraben’ when they mean ‘varjeta ta’ zraben’.
Or on the other hand an advert for a sumptious buffet lunch claiming ‘varieta ta’ kull ikel’. ‘Varjeta ta’ lahmijiet’ could be acceptable as it implies different kinds of meat to choose from. But who vets these banalities; we hear them day in and day out from our two-penny stations, until we start doubting our own grasp of the language and start accepting such gibberish as a proper language.
U mbaghad tohrog l-Akkademja tal-Malti u tghidlek li kellha taccettahom ghax kulhadd qed jitkellem hekk, flok tinsisti fuq aktar u taghlim ahjar.
Don’t get me started on that one!
kuker
wajer
tajer
pokit
tediber
fer
mowbajl
telefown
kuxin
sliper
hendawt
helow
caw
flett
rokit
gerzi
tojlit
CD plejer
spikers (speakers)
sterjo
xatil (shuttle)
futbol …
Majtezwel nuzawhom, eh?
My personal peeve: Literal translation of Maltese phrases such as “noqghod naghmel” (stay doing), “noqghod immur” (stay going).
E.g. I don’t like going there because I have to stay waiting in the queue.
Offer open until stocks last instead of while stocks last.
50% off on everything …
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110405/letters/seize-initiative-on-libya
Insist is another word that is constantly misused. And what about “at the opportune moment” and “augured”… the list goes on and on.
Don’t pretend that everyone knows English good like you, OK?
My hate word is “ifhem”.
So many undergraduates and graduates, so many people who should know better, use this liberally during conversation. It makes me so embarrassed, feeling I am an utter idiot who has to “ifhem” every second sentence.
Especially since every sentence isn’t too complicated to “ifhem”. The word ought to be banned, please please.
Proset tal-intervent.
“Interventions” is as much a word as is “Air Conditions”.
It really drives me up the wall when I hear someone say:
“Xtrajt flett b’erbgħa Air Conditions.”
“Dan il-kampjun hu mislut minn lista ta’ madwar elfejn kelma
miābura minn xi ħarāiet tal-gazzetta L-Orizzont ta’ Novembru 2006.”
““ara wara boj””
“is-Sea Malta bye-bye”
“ië-êerpersin tal-Vodafone”
“ië-ëempjins Inter”
“wara biss tliet minuti kisbu dro meritat”
“gowl minn frijkik”
“għeleb lill-gowlkiper avversarju” (I choked in my tea over that one!)
“għaqqad hatrik”
“kemm full-tajm kif ukoll part-tajm”
“jagħmel xogħol partajm”
“kiel ir-rawndebawt”
“biex jieħu xawer”
“max-xutter ta’ ħanut”
“konna ninqdew b’xi sterjo jew walkmen”
“ħabat rasu mal-windskrin”
( http://www.kunsilltalmalti.gov.mt/filebank/documents/il-ktieb_finali_sa%20Nov%2008.pdf )
Bil-Malti niktbu ERBA’ airconditoners u mhux ERBGHA!
Bil-Malti niktbu ERBA’ airconditioners u mhux ERBGHA airconditioners
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/3ac0810e-d0f0-11df-a426-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1IgXL1IEm
I suppose one should say – spoke or made his/her speech or simply speaking, instead of intervention which sounds so dramatic anyway.