Lingua Latina
It is here that you may seek solace in the vapours of a dying language while you ponder the defeat of Arsenal for the first time in fifty games; hardly a decimation, but certainly a quinquagesimation.
It is here that I learnt 'ora et labora' could mean 'coastline in decline', and that 'auspicium melioris aevi' could mean 'looking for signs of better times'.
It is here that I realised that only the long-dead Romans really knew what they were talking about, and they must be laughing at the scholars who diligently dig through Spanish, French, Italian, Rumanian and other allied languages to figure out what exactly they used to say.
This is the sort of morbid stuff that appears when your only consolation is that 'manu' in Latin can mean 'artificially'. And so it goes, one sips one's sherry and ponders the verb endings of a dead language while the nerve endings of the living recover.
It is here that I learnt 'ora et labora' could mean 'coastline in decline', and that 'auspicium melioris aevi' could mean 'looking for signs of better times'.
It is here that I realised that only the long-dead Romans really knew what they were talking about, and they must be laughing at the scholars who diligently dig through Spanish, French, Italian, Rumanian and other allied languages to figure out what exactly they used to say.
This is the sort of morbid stuff that appears when your only consolation is that 'manu' in Latin can mean 'artificially'. And so it goes, one sips one's sherry and ponders the verb endings of a dead language while the nerve endings of the living recover.
Labels: Latin
etched with acid at 6:42:00 am
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