Language purists begone

Right let's organise a mini survey. If you are reading this stop and quickly answer a question. OK? No cheating which means any purists out there reading this please blog off.

Q: You are searching for something and you have to check Maltese place-names alphabetically. The town known as Sliema is needed. The names listed are in Maltese. Do you check under S? Or under T?

Well the purists, as I said, are thankfully gone, and maybe buried, but it seems Sliema is now Tas-Sliema. Words, unbelievably, nearly fail me.

When I asked someone close to me, who is also quite a language purist, the meaning of this madness she answered that we always refer to Sliema as Tas-Sliema. Ergo it's Tas-Sliema. We don't say "sejjer Sliema"; we say "sejjer Tas-Sliema." Logical no? These people get it right to a t.

So now it seems that officially we have "Tas-" in front of the place-name proper. If this is the revenge of the purists I despair and wish to get them all pelted and belted out of our life and out of our solar system.

Maybe out there, where no man ever ventures, they—these dictators of the world of words and place names—can have a field day naming stars, galaxies and planets in whatever way they wish and desire.

It's bad enough having to look for, in such useful things as Post Code directories, all streets under T and not under the first letter of the actual street name. Yes you guessed it—T is the most logical and easy place to find out Triq il-Barmil's residents' post codes. And if you don't have a clue that the place you are looking for is a Sqaq you have as much chance of finding the post code of that alley as I have of re-growing my hair or winning a beauty contest.

Yes my trusted, dear purists—you for sure do not believe in surveys but I can bet my last piece of sanity that all my readers choose Sliema over Tas-Sliema any time and every time.