There is one error in Carmel Bonavia's otherwise excellent articles on the Pauline tradition in Malta (The Sunday Times, September 7, 14). The small church overlooking Burmarrad does not commemorate the welcome St Paul was given by the Maltese barbaroi (Acts, 27-28), but his power as healer.

Milqi does not mean "welcomed" but "healer" and would best be written as mirqi (from the verb reqa/raqa). The orthodoxy that gives milqi as the past participle of an imaginary verb laqa (LQJ) was deliberately confected to counter those who disclaimed the notion that Paul came to our islands, insisting he went somewhere else in the Adriatic Sea.

The tactic was pretty effective in sealing the identification of Malta as Luke's shipwreck island, but proved of poor service to historical researchers of subsequent Maltese socio-linguistic history. One might perhaps describe the ploy a mini-benefica impostura on the part of well-meaning defenders of our Pauline heritage.

It is, however, quite extraordinary that people who jealously held the chair of Maltese for endless decades of the 20th century should have reflexively and uncritically endorsed the milqi interpretation, opting to rely on a second- or third- rate lexicographer like Hava to perpetuate such recycled, albeit time-honoured, hogwash posing as linguistic savvy. This amateurish approach to the study of languages can only help to discredit the importance of etymology leading to situations not dissimilar to the one which is currently turning into an orthographic free for all.