From Dr S. Vassallo

My reference for using the word “niggardly”, as asked for by Revel Barker (TMIS, 16 September) is The Atlantic Monthly (issue of July, August or September 2007 – I am not sure which). I do try not to speak from the back of my head, or from further south as some correspondents seem to do, running the risk of mixing up sounds, or is it sounds and lettuce? (I leave that point to be explained by the innumerable experts of our Maltese language, if the editor will allow them.)

However Mr Barker, being the consummate correspondent he is, could have realised that this was my means to remind your readers, without actually mentioning it, of the N word which Daphne Caruana Galizia so liberally, deliberately and, I think, criminally, used in her previous article.

I suppose I could equally have used “snigger” but that might have opened up a discussion on “putting down”, a form of sarcasm which one particular nationality is rather good at doing. Enough said. I digress.

Stephen Vassallo

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