From Ms D. Caruana Galizia

It’s not often that I’m handed, on a plate and with trimmings, a title as good as this one. I could, of course, be as tedious as Christopher Cousin of Senglea, who wrote in last week to take Taste magazine to task for a variety of grave sins against good writing, and point out that English does not use the definite article in the construction of a title such as he chose for his missive, ‘A taste of the wild boar’. Which wild boar would that be, Mr Cousin?

Mr Cousin might have, as bores tend to do, an inordinate interest in a single topic that verges on monomania – in this case, wild boar. But I don’t think so. Nobody can be that interested in boar. His real motivation is apparent in the fact that, instead of writing his letter to the editor of the magazine in question (me), he wrote it to the editor of the newspaper with which the magazine is distributed, and who has no connection with, or control over, the magazine, its content, or those who write for it. Or maybe I’m wrong, and Mr Cousin doesn’t have an agenda, but is merely ignorant of publishing formalities.

Mr Cousin appears to be that peculiarly Maltese type of bore who knows of writing only through textbooks and academic works, hence his assertion that a piece of journalism like a magazine article should carry ‘references’ to ‘sources’. No, Mr Cousin, and trust me on this one: there is no such obligation, but rather the opposite. Any attempt to insert numbered references in a newspaper or magazine article is dealt with ruthlessly by sub-editors, or should be. They are, in fact, the first things I remove from any pieces I receive as editor, pointing out politely that there is a difference between the writing people learn to do at university and the writing they might have to do in any other sphere of life or work, most particularly journalism.

There is a difference between writing an academic paper or thesis on wild boar and writing a magazine piece on the same animal for a food-and-drink magazine, and that’s why any half-decent magazine editor would have chosen Beppe Coleiro’s piece over Christopher Cousin’s – which reads as though it has been written by a notary with input from an actuary and subbed by an accountant.

Unfortunately, people with the mindset of Christopher Cousin fail to understand that magazine journalism is not just about conveying information. It is also about entertaining and amusing the reader. And that is why good writers are rarely individuals who approach their subject matter as they would an exercise in proctology, quibbling about the precise length to which a male boar’s tusks grow, and how much it might weigh when adult. Precise statistics on weight, length and height of animals are crucial for a zoological paper. They are not crucial for a food magazine, in which they are mentioned only in passing.

In Mr Cousin’s zeal to zap me with pedantry, he tries to put me right on the business of what a wild boar is actually called. I’m afraid that on this little matter – and they were all little matters that took up so much of his time – he is wrong. ‘Wild boar’ is common English usage for the species known as Sus scrofa, whether male or female. Unfortunately for Mr Cousin, I do happen to know a little more about the English language than he does. So I am aware that females are sows and that males are boars (or as in Mr Cousin’s case, bores and boors). Unlike him, however, I know that the ‘male’ name is used generically for both genders, which is why boar farms are not stocked exclusively with males of the species Sus scrofa, but with females and only the odd male or two to impregnate them. In Christopher Cousin’s ideal world, they would be called Sus scrofa farms. I imagine that he is the type of person who, when out for a drive with a friend, draws his attention to a pack of dogs, remarks (erroneously): “Actually, they’re not just dogs because I can see some bitches there, too.”

I have no cure for petty-mindedness, though I must ask what sort of person would write something like this: “The article also referred to the hunter armed with a gun as facing a largely illusionary challenge. Here emphasis should be made on the word “largely”, which I question. After having enlightened myself both through reading and speaking with people who did experience real wild boars, I would rather remove largely and retain illusionary.” This kind of thing might have gone down a storm when he was an undergraduate asked to discuss somebody else’s paper, but at his age (I believe he is in his late 30s) he should have realised that different situations call for different styles of writing. I imagine he is what the current generation calls an anorak, and what my generation called a train-spotter, and what’s more, one who needs to brush up on his grammar. It’s not ‘who did experience’, but ‘who experienced’, but now I’m beginning to sound as much of a bore as Mr Cousin.

As for his accusations of plagiarism, perhaps Mr Cousin should be told that there is a world of difference between cribbing entire essays at university level and obtaining facts and information for magazine articles from published sources. If your correspondent were to read more widely – journals, London broadsheets, magazines – he would discover to his amazement that, oh dear, there are no references and yet they are jam-packed with informative and amusing pieces, the facts therein having been plundered from a variety of sources, including books, other magazines, other newspapers, television programmes and the Internet. Really large media organisations actually employ researchers to do precisely this: source cuttings on any subject a journalist might need. Mr Cousin might be surprised to discover that there are even such things as cuttings files sitting in cuttings libraries, which have now been largely superseded by cuttings filed away digitally on hardware using software.

Perhaps Mr Cousin imagines that it is necessary, when writing a piece of journalism, to base it only on original research that one has conducted oneself, even if the facts are known already and widely available. To keep Christopher Cousin of Senglea happy and content, we would have had to measure the tusks of a hundred boars ourselves and come up with the average length, give or take a couple of millimetres.

Mr Cousin would be happier, and the rest of us would be spared his public distress, if he were to stick to reading reports written by public servants for distribution to other public servants, throwing in some logarithm tables for variety. They are right up his street. He can leave fun to the rest of us, as clearly, it is beyond his understanding.

Daphne Caruana Galizia

BIDNIJA