Thursday, November 6, 2014

Lauren goes to Latin

This fall semester finds me auditing a Latin class. If I was any good at Latin this might be a little nerdy; however, I am terrible because I don't study and it's very difficult. In fact, many experts agree that the Latin language is impossible.

Did you know there are 44 different ways to spell Latin nouns?? It depends how you are using the noun grammatically in the sentence. I won't get into it so as not to bore you, but I could. For sure.

Here is a little story: Once upon a time some Latin studying took place at W.A. Frost. Frost had the perfect wine cellar basement in which to bring Latin books, realize Latin is impossible, and order another glass of wine.


There have been some fun tidbits along the way.

Have you ever heard the word defenestrate? It means to throw someone out of a window. Well, the Latin word for window is fenestra. How about that?!

Or have you ever said, 'Well at my alma mater we did this.'? Or are you a normal person and just say, 'Well at my school we did that'. Either way, alma means nourishing/kind/gracious and mater = mother. Obvious right? It's easy to miss at first, but once you know it's a total *facepalm* how did I not see that before.

Delere = to destroy or erase. 1678 years later we now have ----------------> delete

One more - magna cum laude. Magna: large (plural), cum: with, laude: praise. So something like: with big praises. That one is kind of cool, and we do say 'with high honors' sometimes which is sort of the same idea.


The class really has been a lot of fun. The professor loves talking about Latin and languages in general, and it's been a much needed review of direct/indirect objects, present participles, all the stuff you learn in 4th grade grammar, etc.

But in summary, while Latin is pretty neat, here is a fear that should no longer keep you up at night: Lauren saying stuff like, 'Actually, as one says in the Latin....' while wearing small glasses and a beret.

Because there is no way that could even happen!

At best, I may point something out as 'definitely Latin.'