In a hole, Malta doesn't have a big bottom
I was fascinated to discover, through the medium of Facebook, the Manglish expresson ‘in a hole’, used when writing or speaking Maltese to mean ‘on the whole’. E.g. In a hole joghgobni dal-post. Majtezwel noqghodu ftit iehor.
I can sort of see how it happens. People don’t read, so they pick up expressions aurally, and then mispronounce them because they mishear them, or because they have heard them mispronounced. And then they write what they think they’ve heard.
All the English-language media are now prey to this sort of ‘many a slip twixt cup and lip’ hiatus of error between the word popping into the mind in its raw form and then being put down on the page, whether in print or on the internet.
The benefit of the internet is that it allows for correction immediately mistakes are noticed. So, over the last few days, we have had WOMAN FOUND GUILTY OF SMUGGLING HEROINE on maltatoday.com.mt, people ADMITTING to earning more than a certain amount a year on timesofmalta.com, and the CELEBRATED case of Giga who murdered her young son, also on timesofmalta.com.
They’re quickly corrected, but the Labour Party’s official news website, maltastar.com, feels no such pressure and appears to revel in its mistakes.
Today, for example, it is running the headline:
MALTA LACKS BEHIND IN INNOVATIONS
I wonder how long it will take them to work out what’s wrong with it.
57 Comments Comment
Leave a Comment
See their leading article: Gonzi’s team are broken, not broke
I wish I knew what ‘puffy antics’ is supposed to mean.
They also seem to think that ‘team’ is plural. A team IS broken, you twits.
Off topic, but look at this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12355022
This maked my day.
How come You missed this one Daphne? Oh, it’s not on the Times, it’s your pappagalli THIS MAKED MY DAY.
[Daphne – It was deliberate, Swieqi|Man. It’s called irony. Look it up.]
How ironic indeed to cover your pappagalli. I believe you are in contact with Geek, knowing it was deliberate.
[Daphne – No. It’s just that people of the same type recognise each other. You know, the way your lot communicate like this: :)) tejt immorru cofi l-ferries man x’buzz.]
sixfooter – Not only are you short, but you sound rather thick, too.
WHOOOOOSH! That one went over your head! (Note: that’s not the same as ‘ghaddietlek minn rasek’!)
Brillient! Know you truely maked my dey
How about this from timesofmalta.com today?
“At Lija, a front wheel of a Mercedes couple’ got stuck in a manhole which was dislodged by the torrent of water.”
I noticed that mistake. It is obviously a typo. It should have read coupe’. Probably an automatic spell checker mess up.
Mistakes such as that, in my opinion, are not serious. It is mistakes in idiomatic English that are of concern because they make the writing incomprehensible.
…and belie underlying ignorance of the language…
Also, ‘which’ should be ‘that’ there.
It was the manhole cover, not the manhole itself, that was dislodged.
Similar to that, on timesofmalta.com, there was recently a collision between an ‘open Corsa’ and some other car. The article has since been corrected to ‘Opel Corsa’.
On the printed edition it was referred to as a Toyota Corsa – that, I had never heard of and assumed must be a mistake, but I was quite surprised to find out that such a thing does actually exist.
U issa ma tarax li qed titlob wisq, Daphne!
Illum tant ma jaqrawx li, ghalkemm ma napprovax il-loghob, naghmel imhatra ghal tazza ilma li hemm min qed isib diffikulta jara ghala inti qed tghid hekk dwar il-headline tal-Maltastar.
Imma naturalment, ghax tkun ta’ l-affari tieghek, tkun snob, tippretendija u x’naf jien…u forsi jghidulek sahhara ukoll. Ghax l-akkwisti tal-hajja bis-sharijiet jigu, taf xejn.
Dawn hmir li lanqas zunnarija ma jaghrfu.
What about this? – ma kien hemm hadd id-dar, habbat u cempilt l-intercourse, ma rrisponda hadd.
Ma rrisponda hadd ghall-intercourse. You win some, you lose some.
You either lack or else fall behind.
or lag behind
[Daphne – That’s it. Lack and lag mean two completely different things, but because native Maltese speakers have difficulty pronouncing the final G in English words and turn it into a K instead (which is how, for example, the naval GROG became GROKK), they pronounce ‘lag’ as ‘lak’ and then think that the word is ‘lack’.]
… and kettle became kitla.
Lou, in my opinion things such as that are quaint.
The English do it to, they bastardize words from French and German and Indian and….
My favourite ‘English’ word is ‘dandelion’ (the common weed). Its etymology is hilarious. It is a translation from the French ‘Lion’s tooth’.
Even the word tea, something that many would think couldn’t be possibly more English, is a loan word from the Chinese ‘tsai’.
At least they didn’t spell it “leck”, which is probably the way they pronounce it.
What about this from K Borg Bonaci?
‘ketleries’ instead of cutlery
Do we have a front at least?
If something “lacks” it is obvious that is behind, the other object or entity one is comparing it with.
[Daphne – Not really, because ‘lacks’ is incorrectly used in Malta. It is not a term of comparison as such. An example of correct usage is: This kitchen lacks a decent cooker.]
Hence no need to put the behind it is implied already.
[Daphne – Well, ‘behind’ is actually an integral part of it: the verb is ‘to lag (behind)’. It’s the noun ‘lag’ that doesn’t use ‘behind’, as in time-lag.]
I was referring to when the word lacks is used not lag. It is the expression as you said lag behind.
Daphne, it seems you like delving into the linguistic meaning or the origin of words. I too find it interesting.
Mario, Daphne is correct and no matter how you twist your arguments, you lose.
‘Lack’ implies that something is deficient. (lack of manners = rude)
‘Lag’ implies that something or someone falls behind.
If you cannot see the difference in the two words with distinct meanings, then I recommend you refer to a dictionary when in doubt.
Even if maltastar’s headline read, ‘MALTA LAGS BEHIND IN INNOVATIONS’, it would still be incorrect because lags already implies ‘behind’. One cannot lag forward. The opposite to lag is ‘lead’ and one does not say ‘lead ahead’ since if one leads, the rest are assumed to be behind. Just like maltastar.com is!
[Daphne – I’m going to have to browbeat you about this, I’m afraid. The correct usage is lags behind. In idiomatic English, you will only find the verb ‘lags’ used in conjunction with ‘behind’, except in very exceptional cases of which none spring to mind at present.]
You’d be more likely to find the verb ‘lags’ used not in conjunction with ‘behind’ in American rather than in British English.
Talking about American, I’ve noticed that the use of ‘gotten’ is creeping in here. Even Alfred Sant uses it.
The correct headline, presumably would have read:
“Malta lags behind (other European countries) in innovative tax incentives”
Using ‘lag’ without ‘behind’ makes no more sense than using ‘pick’ without ‘up’ when you don’t mean ‘choose’.
There should always be a noun or adjective + noun right after “lack” or “lacks”. If you google “lacks behind” you’ll get articles from China, Ghana, India and now, Malta.
I would like to present two examples of the use of the verb ‘lack’.
The journalists at Maltastar lack a basic grasp of the English language.
The journalists at Maltastar lack brains.
Both are correct, and not only grammatically.
lacks: does not have
lag: delay, insulate; behind the leading pack
From today’s edition of The Malta Independent page 4 (bottom right):
“Mr. Chetcuti…was arraigned on 11 March after he beat Mr. Farrugia at the GRTU’s headquarters in Valletta”
What did he beat him at? Was it chess, checkers, backgammon?
[Daphne – The usage here is correct. I’m relieved to be able to say that, because it’s the newspaper I work for. Here are some examples. He was beaten by his father. The dog was beaten by its master. The policeman beat me with a truncheon. She beat her pillow in anger.]
Beg to differ slightly, Daphne. When ‘beat’ is used as in the above context, it is usually hyphenated or at least followed by ‘up’.
Therefore Mr. Farrugia is alleged to have been beaten-up by Mr. Chetcuti.
A soccer team beats the opponent (implying by a score). Heavens forbid if a soccer team resorts to beating up the opponent in order to obtain points.
[Daphne – Se niggieldu nispiccaw, Angus. The verb is ‘to beat’. You beat a man or a dog. Some people are not content with saying, correctly, that a man has been beaten, and so they say that he has been beaten UP (also correct, but it weakens one’s style), in the same way as somebody giving a recipe instruction might tell you to whisk UP a pot of cream rather than just whisking it, which suffices. Your use of hyphenation in ‘beaten-up’ is completely incorrect. If you must insist on saying that somebody was beaten up, rather than just beaten, leave the hyphen out. ]
Daphne, mieghek ma tantx inhobb niggieled ghax fl-ahhar mill-ahhar we are splitting hairs.
Out of curiosity I Googled ‘beat’ and ‘beat up’ (without hyphen) and came up with half a million entries! Some agreed with you, others agreed with me in as much as following beat with ‘up’ seems to be more direct description of the action (verb).
The word ‘beat’ by itself can be applied to more actions not remotely connected with violence, hence…team A beat team B, the beat goes on, etc. as in music. I am sure that Mr. Farrugia being beat up by Mr. Chetcuti did not sound like a music interlude although a few punches to the head may have sounded like the beat of a drum!
No hyphen is used in ‘beat up’. It is just one of hundreds or thousands of phrasal verbs.
Daphne, we in Malta confuse American English and British English.
I almost wrote ‘real’ English here. As far as I know in American English ‘beaten’ means something else – something related to competitions and losers.
Using “beat up” rather than just “beat” would have made more sense. Actually the correct verb should have been “assaulted”.
[Daphne – Beaten up is a form of slang, if you wish, that has entered the mainstream language, but nobody who speaks sophisticated English uses it. Compare these two – ‘A man was beaten up by policemen’ and ‘a man was beaten by policemen’ and ask yourself which one you would most likely hear on a BBC World Service radio news bulletin (where the English is perfect and the accent cut glass, as opposed to BBC television) and which you would most likely hear in a pub. There is snobbery in language as there is in everything else, so if you wear Burberry checks, say beaten up.]
I agree that “beaten up” is slang. I disagree it is a question of snobbery but rather one of incorrect usage. I listen to BBC radio practically every day and if I had to venture a guess I would say they would have used “assaulted” rather than “beat”. In the context I think using “beat”, albeit grammatically correct, was not the best choice of verb.
I despair. The specimen “common entrance” English exam papers (or whatever they are called nowadays) themselves leave much to be desired.
Check the national yardsticks out here:
http://www.curriculum.gov.mt/docs/English_Primary/NEPE%20-%20English%20Writing%20Examination%20_Sample%20Paper_.pdf
http://www.curriculum.gov.mt/docs/English_Primary/NEPE%20-%20English%20Reading%20Comprehension%20Examination%20_Sample%20Paper_.pdf
http://www.curriculum.gov.mt/docs/English_Primary/NEPE%20-%20English%20Listening%20Examination%20Procedures%20_Task%201%20and%202_.pdf
The full lot may be seen on http://www.curriculum.gov.mt.
If experienced and qualified people are writing these exam papers, then there isn’t much hope for many of the rest.
Look on the bright side – at least it hasn’t het been called a “personhole”.
I find that Kate Moss lacks behind.
And, just in case any of you didn’t know, “attics” does not refer to the spaces at the top of houses, but is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality.
‘many a slip twixt cup and lip’
I remember with deep nostalgia a radio program on British Forces Broadcasting Service (B.F.B.S.) Malta on Sunday mornings. The guests had speak for one minute without a pause or going out of subject.
It was great fun with even greater wit.
It was called ‘Just a Minute’. Kenneth Williams was a regular on this B.B.C. radio show.
Here I go again, someone mentions the word BOTTOM and I think of Gudja – wonder what the connection is.
You have put into words something that has been irritating me for quite a few years. I wasn’t sure whether this was a widespread phenomenon but you have made it clear that it is.
The availability of internet communication for almost everyone in Malta has made it clear that many ‘speakers’ of English have never read a book in English.
This article in the Malta Independent:
http://www.independent.com.mt/news.asp?newsitemid=119340
has this expert justifying the mangling of English. In my opinion if English is no longer understandable or even recognisable by its native speakers then it is no longer English.
Hmmm… what about chicken breast bil-cornflakes? As advertised on TVM? Sounds tempting to you?
Yummy. A bodybuilder’s breakfast.
Although Inter still lag behind the leaders of the Serie A, AC Milan, today the gap has been reduced to seven points.
Some believe that Milan, who are slowly being reeled in, lack the mental strength to become Serie A champions.
Two other gems from today’s edition of the Times:
“The police believe an argument broke out between the Bulgarian man and a Maltese national, suspected to be a driver, who hit the man and drove away.”
What is exactly the point of telling us he is suspected to be a driver, it is like saying it is suspected he was a human being.
“Dar Malta breached Belgian laws – newspaper report”
As far as I know you break laws or rules and you breach conditions or agreements. One commits a breach OF a law, if anything.
Here are two from the Times:
“The new power station would be creating a tonne of heavy fuel oil sludge daily which the plant would be unable to fire from its machine pistons”
Fire from its machine pistons? What the heck is that supposed to mean? I don’t know if Leo Brincat that came up with that gem or the Times mistranslated him.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110205/local/new-power-station-waste-of-serious-concern-opposition
Then later the government replied by stating that:
“the opposition insisted on making spokes in the wheels and alarming the people.”
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110205/local/power-station-extension-would-not-produce-toxic-waste-government