I am not Maltese and I do not live in Malta but I have been following Maltese-language radio and TV broadcasts for two years and still must confess that "that word" (Vincent A. Galea, December 8), "that malady", is totally new to me!

"How come that all these people's education and vocabulary have shrunk so low? Is there an antidote?"

Yes, there is. One need not buy the Miklem; any simple dictionary should be sufficient to convince the correspondent, and those who supposedly edit the letters for publishing, that there is no such Maltese word like "obvjament" (sic!). A little bit less Anglomania and less negligence towards the Maltese language might help as well. Is the island's precious own language good only for bashing and bad jokes?

As for some people's habit to insert pleonasms like "ovvjament" into each and every sentence, that is another story and not only a Maltese phenomenon...