CHUCKY’S SHADE: No, I Won’t ‘Just Let You Call Malta’s Hail Snow’
Just to clarify something from the get-go: correcting someone for saying there were 6,100 not 6,000 soldiers at the Great Siege is pedantic. Correcting them for saying it happened in 1564 is not.
As temperatures plummet below dignity-on-NYE levels across the island, spells of hail will rain down all over Malta. And with the icy-cold weather come awkward Facebook posts asking for cuddles, and a whole load of people calling sky-ice, snow.
In case the difference isn’t clear: if it hurts your head when it falls from the clouds – it’s hail. If it looks like it’d fall off the head of a teenage boy – it’s snow.
But why is it so annoying when people use the two interchangeably? Well, it’s not – what’s really annoying is people insisting you let it slide and not point out the error whenever people make it.
“Uwijja, halliha tg?ix. Live and let live.”
“If it hurts your head when it falls from the sky – it’s hail. If it looks like it’d fall off the head of a teenage boy – it’s snow”
Letting people spread false information is not the same as letting people live their lives freely and as they choose. The former is living and letting lie, and we shouldn’t be OK with that.
Hopefully by now it’s clicked that this isn’t just a meteorological rant (although seriously, stop calling it snow).
Our national battle cry of ‘uwiva, mhux xorta’ (‘oh well, doesn’t matter‘) is only amplified when it comes to defending people who we feel need sheltering from the world, and this includes fully-grown adults too.
When you ask “who cares if they said snow, we all understood what they meant” – the reply is simple: no we didn’t! I thought I’d slept through an insane historical first for the island, not a regular January morning.
From shrugging off a half-arsed tarmac job on a main road to asking the media to keep silent on allegations of domestic abuse against an individual who could potentially dictate national law, we really need to prioritise when it’s time to speak up and speak out.
“Hopefully by now it’s clicked that this isn’t just a meteorological rant (although seriously, stop calling it snow)”
As writers we also know there’s a fine line between important corrections and pedantic interjections. While fixing errors is important, some comments can get pretty frustrating when people go out of their way to clarify minor details.
Who really cares if “10cm is actually 3.9 inches not 4”? Whose day is brightened by writing “it was at 12:30pm so you can’t say this morning“, or “five shots of tequila is not a normal thing to put in a trifle, Chucky are you OK?”?
Why do people only get involved in other’s business when it’s to correct a minor detail in a sentence just to feel smarter than them, or to go speak out against the fundamental rights of who they’re legally allowed to love?
Well, those two things, and what dress female singers should wear on the Eurovision stage.
In the era where the importance of facts is melting faster than this month’s frozen water (whatever form it may take), let’s stop making the mistake of not calling out mistakes.
And let’s also take the time to explain why something is wrong rather than smashing that CAPS button and going to town. 2019 isn’t about being ‘cancelled’ – it’s about learning.
And just because it’s not actual snow, doesn’t mean you can’t build a killer snowman.