What with the 2054th anniversary of the death of Julius Caesar this week (Et tu, Brute?) and London’s mayor Boris Johnson urging state schools to start teaching Latin again, the old language has been in the news saepius sepius (frequently).
Boris even went as far to say “I firmly believe that we must not starve the minds of students eager to embrace the great intellectual disciplines of Latin…There is simply no better way than to make young minds think in a logical and analytical way.”
But how useful is Latin? It’s a dead language right? I mean, when do we ever use it?
Well, if you’re a lawyer, a gardener or a medicus (doctor) you probably use Latin all the time. But even if you’re not you probably use Latin every day.
Here are a pauca sed bona (few, but good) Latin phrases and words.
| Ad hoc: to this particular purpose | Modus operandi (m.o.): way of operating |
| Ad infinitum: going on forever | Nota bene (n.b.): note it well |
| Ad nauseam: continuing to the point of nausea | Per annum: yearly |
| Ante meridiem (a.m.): before noon | Per capita: per head (per person) |
| Agenda: things to be done | Per cent: per hundred |
| Alias: otherwise | Per diem: daily |
| Alibi: elsewhere | Per se: by itself |
| Census: count of citizens | Post meridiem (p.m.): after noon |
| Carpe diem: Seize the day | Post mortem: after death |
| Circa (ca.): around or approximately | Post partum: after childbirth |
| E.g. (exempli gratia): for example | Post scriptum (p.s.): postscript |
| Et al. (et alii): and others | Quid pro quo: something for something |
| Etc. (et cetera): and the rest of such things | Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?: Who will guard the guardians? |
| Ergo: therefore in conclusion | Quo vadis: where are you going? |
| Facsimile: make a similar one | Referendum: something to be referred |
| I.e. (id est): that is or in other words | Rigor mortis: the rigidity of death |
| In memoriam: in memory (of) | Sic: thus |
| Interim: meanwhile | Status quo: the state in which |
| In vino veritas: In wine is truth | Terra firma: solid ground |
| Ipso facto: by the fact itself | Via: by way of |
| Magnum opus: the greatest piece of work | Veni, vidi, vici: I came, I saw, I conquered |
| Memorabilia: memorable things | Vice versa: position being reversed |
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I failed Latin O level but I use Latin every day. I’m fascinated with the roots of English – I love all those TV quiz questions that begin: ‘From the Latin for x and y what word means z?’ And I like recognising when a word isn’t from Latin or Greek but, for example, Viking or Gaelic. I’m not sure how useful it is for today’s children to conjugate Latin verbs, decline nouns and read Caesar’s Gallic Wars. But I do think that knowing where words come from (even if you don’t call it etymology) is a good skill to have, especially when learning other languages.
It was a good reminder about all those phrases that we use every day coming directly from Latin. Mind you we also use Greek, Arabic and French.
Personally I wouldn’t want my child to spend precious time at school learning Latin. There are plenty of far more relevant things they could teach her in the limited time available.
My first Latin teacher made my life a misery after I got nought out of ten in a test, and also happened to draw a large tombstone at the top, engraved with my name, a cross and a perfectly-rendered ‘REQUIESCAT IN PACE’.
No sense of humour, some people.