Worthless Euro

It is common to see utter lack of humility and foolishness on the pages of The Times, but to see them combined in such undiluted form as in Tuesday's column by John A. Consiglio is rare. To set the scene, the subject at hand is the once-boring and now thoroughly cretinous euro versus ewro debate. Supposedly, by his own boastful admission, Consiglio was one of the first to rattle this vacuous orthographical hornet's nest.

"Having been among the first to throw in my whatever worth in this argument about the correct spelling to be used for the single European currency to be hopefully adopted in Malta after January 2008, I have really enjoyed the contributions (including those of the hotheads) that have appeared about the subject."

The article is written in that extraordinarily smug fashion that only those that have actually achieved something should be able to get away with. By the end of the second paragraph, Consiglio contrives to make no less four asides, in what he must imagine to be convincingly vaudevillian wit. Note, however, that they serve only to demonstrate that like the standard village bore, Consiglio is interested in only his own fat-headed opinion, failing even to remember who it is exactly that he disagrees with.

"But the cherry on the cake was that statement by whoever (officially authorised, powerful, qualified or not, or whatever) who said (wherever) that in legal and official texts it will have to be spelt 'euro', but it's worth encouraging (how condescending!) its use as "ewro" in other Maltese texts."

After the prerequisite bragging, he then proceeds to make an argument that I would wager has developed no more since the first time he made. Namely, this is that the wise counsel of the Akkademja tal-Malti has decreed that ewro is to be spelling. It has gone strangely unreported that the same academy has pledged to issue a pox on any house that fails to assent to its edicts. Not that that's true, but it might as well be, since its the only way that any of their guidelines are likely to adopted.
Consiglio then dangles the threat of what he imagines will be the popular rage that will assail the National Euro Changeover Committee should it "kowtow to any EU body that happens to bleat at it". Talk about the pot calling the kettle black; though it would probably be more accurate to describe Consiglio's remarks as whinnying rather than bleating.
What I assume to be a new branch in Consiglio's thoughts on the matter, and does he appear to have devoted an unseemly amount of time to it, is described generously by its proponent as "tangential". Tangential being the English word meaning "slightly relevant". Not tangential as in frigging ridiculous as so inapposite a line of argument as to verge on the senile. The paragraph is daft enough to deserve quoting in its full unfettered preposterousness:

"On another note which, I know, some will describe as tangential thinking, I would like to point out that in this country we also happen to have an Interpretation Act. This essentially provides that where a Maltese legal text might clash in its interpretation with the interpretation of the English language version of the same law, then it is the Maltese interpretation of said law which should prevail. Now in the case of whichever court (Maltese or European or whatever) that might some day be required to deliberate on the meaning of either ewro or euro then I have no doubt that the learned judges will easily decide and interpret euro and ewro as exactly the same common currency of the eurozone member states of the European Union. So there really should be no problem in writing ewro in all Maltese legal texts and all other material written in Maltese."

And how can you rely on the cognitive and argumentative faculties of somebody who unconvincgly begins relating his tedious anecdote with these highlighted words:

"On a final note, and this if my memory serves me right, I distinctly recall the former Minister of Education and President Emeritus - and a sincere lover of both our Maltese and European cultural heritage - Ugo Mifsud Bonnici pulling me up at a packed Chamber of Commerce meeting to insist that when speaking in Maltese I should say ewro and not euro."

As a legal argument this is complete piffle. So returning to his opening gambit about throwing in his "whatever worth into this argument", my suggestion is that whatever the currency is eventually called, the sum should be zero. Or xejn, for the purists.