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ego
November 2009 
Latin Lover
Posted on Jul 14th, 2008
by 
martha
martha
Adventures in ego exploration: free association. How is the brain wired? What does a person think about when presented with an idea? Do those thoughts pretty much remain the same? If I say "ginger" to you today, and a year later say "ginger" to you again, will you come up with the same responses on both occasions? I think probably so. Unless there has been growth, healing, creative living involving that idea, perhaps.
I decided to open the dictionary in the middle and find a random word and then allow my mind to free associate from it. Why? I donno. Because I want to see what I'd say about a random idea. So, I pointed to any random word on my dictionary page, and the word turned out to be "Latin," as in the ancient language of Rome. When I hear the word "Latin," the very first thing that I think of, every single time, is my high school. There were earnest young men who studied Latin, but by the time I decided to enroll, they shut down the class due to lack of interest. Disappointment.
There was one sort-of opportunity to learn some Latin a little earlier, though. Mr. Booth, a very good English teacher from my Jr. High, made us memorize long lists of Latin prefixes and suffixes and roots and their meanings. There were lists of Greek word parts, too. He said that knowing these would serve us well in the coming years, and he was not in any way wrong! Then from there, my neural network splits into two divergent pathways. One leads toward the practical jokes I played on poor Mr. Booth. Like the time I brought training wheels to school hidden in a bag, and when nobody was looking, I leaned them against either side of the back wheel of the bicycle that he rode to work every day and parked inside our classroom. It took a while for him to notice, but when he did, it was just the funniest thing. You see, Mr. Booth also had a sense of humor, and didn't mind a joke about himself.
The other neural pathway takes me to the mid '70's, when I called Mr. Booth to see if he would send me a copy of those word part lists, so that I could do some serious tutoring work with some non-native learners of English. Mr. Booth was rather surprised that I still remembered anything about all that, but being the kind gentleman that he was, he happily sent along the materials, which I did, in fact, use. The plan worked ok in some ways, and not in others. I don't know any formal ESL techniques. An ESL person would probably tell me I"m nuts, but it was actually a helpful teaching strategy for the very common prefixes, suffixes and roots. The end of that string is when I wonder where I put all those notes? It's something that I probably lost after many years and many moves. And then I arrive at a familiar theme of "losing my roots," which ends in a combination of self pity and self recrimination, neither of which are productive.
Hmm. What kind of a whole is all this stuff, taken as a whole?
I decided to open the dictionary in the middle and find a random word and then allow my mind to free associate from it. Why? I donno. Because I want to see what I'd say about a random idea. So, I pointed to any random word on my dictionary page, and the word turned out to be "Latin," as in the ancient language of Rome. When I hear the word "Latin," the very first thing that I think of, every single time, is my high school. There were earnest young men who studied Latin, but by the time I decided to enroll, they shut down the class due to lack of interest. Disappointment.
There was one sort-of opportunity to learn some Latin a little earlier, though. Mr. Booth, a very good English teacher from my Jr. High, made us memorize long lists of Latin prefixes and suffixes and roots and their meanings. There were lists of Greek word parts, too. He said that knowing these would serve us well in the coming years, and he was not in any way wrong! Then from there, my neural network splits into two divergent pathways. One leads toward the practical jokes I played on poor Mr. Booth. Like the time I brought training wheels to school hidden in a bag, and when nobody was looking, I leaned them against either side of the back wheel of the bicycle that he rode to work every day and parked inside our classroom. It took a while for him to notice, but when he did, it was just the funniest thing. You see, Mr. Booth also had a sense of humor, and didn't mind a joke about himself.
The other neural pathway takes me to the mid '70's, when I called Mr. Booth to see if he would send me a copy of those word part lists, so that I could do some serious tutoring work with some non-native learners of English. Mr. Booth was rather surprised that I still remembered anything about all that, but being the kind gentleman that he was, he happily sent along the materials, which I did, in fact, use. The plan worked ok in some ways, and not in others. I don't know any formal ESL techniques. An ESL person would probably tell me I"m nuts, but it was actually a helpful teaching strategy for the very common prefixes, suffixes and roots. The end of that string is when I wonder where I put all those notes? It's something that I probably lost after many years and many moves. And then I arrive at a familiar theme of "losing my roots," which ends in a combination of self pity and self recrimination, neither of which are productive.
Hmm. What kind of a whole is all this stuff, taken as a whole?
Access: Public
A whole lot of fun! LOL
My mother told me Latin was a dead language…only Catholic priests still spoke it int he 1960's and I wondered how in hell anyone knew what they said at mass.
All I ever knew was E Plurbis Unum. And he was not a handsome classmate who sat behind me in study hall!
I love your ideas Martha….they invigorate me…! And between you and maze, I have enough fun for several minutes each day!
:)
I took three years of Latin in high school. We used to say nthis about it: Latin killed the Romans…now it's killing us. Here's a random word for you today….collard. Hmmm, they may even be in season…maybe that means I should have some for supper.
Talk about free association….when I read the title of this blog (which really got my attention, btw), I immediately thought of “Younger Costa Rican guy I dated a while back.” :)
Great blog…love the idea of opening the dictionary and randomly picking a word to explore. Cool!
BTW…I'm an ESL teacher and I think your strategy is/was fine. We tend to use it with intermediate/higher levels, and I think it's definitely worthwhile.
:)
I'm with Lisa - never had a Latin lover but that is what jumped to mind…
I did second year Latin the year i lived in northern England in grade nine so it was sort of like doing two years of latin… I really love all languages… fascinating
tee hee.. I went straight to former encounters with latin men like Lisa.. then further back to them haunting years of latin studies.. i majored in languages in college, so there was no way around it. Has served me well though, as all german languages are connected to the latin grammar system, thus making it a lot easier to learn a new language..
Martha, I loved that story with the training wheels :-D & it made me remember a practical joke we did on our Latin & greek mythology teacher.. He was quite old at the time & would get so totally wrapped up in his storytelling that he would be oblivious to what went on around him.. We once boiled 30 eggs in the back of the classroom & gave them to him at the end of the lecture.. He looked absolutely astounded & asked: What's the symbolic means of this gesture? I loved him dearly & he said I had a Homerian laughter,LOL!
oh.. & one last association: 'by the way, I think that Carthago ought to be destroyed..'
one of the dudes in the roman senate used to end his speeches with that line & now,
I forget his name.. anybody knows who it was?
Incidentally, Cato was not his name; it was Marcus Porcius Priscus. The Romans called a skillful or experienced man Catus. The person in question was nicknamed “the Elder” to distinguish him from his great-grandson, Cato the Philosopher. Plutarch, writing in 75 C.E., tells us that he was an able warrior and farmer, who fought with his soldiers and worked with his slaves, sharing their food and their lot. He was a man of impeccable personal qualities, a man of real Roman values, much admired by his contemporaries.
Info stolen from the web
Latin Lover - Ricardo Montalban was my first thought.
Then high school Latin classes - I was in 9E (for all thesmart kids) We were the only grade 9'ers that had to take Latin. Our favourite ” Ubi est sub ubi?”- where is your under wear? We thought that was hilarious back in 1955. The first Latin phrase we learned was “ubi est agricola? - where is the farmer?
The best thing about learning Latin was how helpful it was for learning French, But especially in later years - playing Trivial Pursuit - Latin roots made me the winner many times. I can still figure out most words today - very helpful on things like Free Rice - For Each Vocabulary Word You Get Right, We Donate Free Rice through the United www.freerice.com/index.php (this has been posted by a few Gaians but worth another look.
Great blog, Martha. - Fun, funny, and meaty
I thought, “Martha has a Latin Lover?” Wow, this is going to be a hot & steamy blog.
So agree with your thoughts about the way we're hard-wired to think the same way again and again unless: Unless there has been growth, healing, creative living involving that idea, perhaps.
It seems to me that true freedom has to do with moving past the hard wiring in our brain and really being able to see other options, other perceptions, other awarenesses. Many connections. And then being able to choose between the infinite variety that present themselves.
In secondary school we did one year of Classics and then had an option to learn Latin, which I took because by then I had realised I had a knack for languages. I didn't love it; I'm just thankful my accent didn't matter - because nobody really spoke it, did they? It sounded pretty ridiculous when anyone tried, indeed.
It helped when I tackled Spanish and when I visited Italy of course, Rome in particular. Lots of the street signs are in Latin still. I was able to bumble myself along when looking at a street name lol It helped, because my travelling companion was from Indonesia so her English roots were shaky at best, furthermore her Romansk ones!
'Latin Lover' should probably bring that association to me, about someone of Latin descent. I hadn't seen the headline - it's not listed on the front page, just the body of the text - but even now I wonder if I would have gone there directly. I'm pretty strange with associations… I'm glad it isn't the subject tho. I know a little more about Latin the language lol Latin the Lover: one very strange individual I know from Argentina who really wasn't as interesting as he ought to be. Oh well!
Love to you, sherri
Whoa! Who would have thought that there was such responsive energy around the whole “Latin” thing? But then again, it IS a seed of our own language and worldview, so something Latin is deep within all of us, I guess.
Aley, I agree with you that it's odd that the Catholic Church gleefully plugged along in Latin long after hardly anyone understood them any more. But it did create a sort of common tongue in Europe for a few centuries, and it was certainly the common written language of many scholars until relatively recently. I always thought they keep the Latin in the rituals to maintain distance, mystique and power. But that's just the cynical side of me speaking. There's also lots of issues involved in translation that would have to be dealt with… Aley, whenever I find you (or you find me) and read your words, I smile! :)
Maze, yes I always thought you were lucky to take that much Latin. It's cool. Collard? I don't know what they taste like, but they're probably good for me. Hmm. I could cook some up and get back to you. Or not. It's 50/50.
Lisa, I am amazed that you approve of my general tactic, but that's good. You know how when you're young you just DO stuff, and then later realize that it could have been risky. And I'd like you to know that as I wrote that part about ESL teachers, there was a small neural firing that brought you to mind, and I wondered whether you would stumble across this blog, and if you would approve. Thanks for your thoughts! That's the beauty of it. If one were to map one's TOTAL associations in a giant map, it would be HUGE, and wouldn't that be so very interesting? Or two people could do contiguous maps, and their shared associations could converge with each other. And just because we haven't written it down on paper doesn't mean it doesn't exist!
Which brings me to the theme that, in general, isn't the whole world interwoven with our habitual ego thoughts? Just as we still have the Appian Way (as Sherri would affirm), we all still have the “Alphabet song” or Beatles lyrics… and on another level our patterns for behavior, scripts, roles…
Nicole! I would love to go to school in Northern England! My ancestors are from up that way, and I've been drawn there via romantic fantasy (aka Heathcliff and Kathy on the moors) all my life. How was it that you were in school in Northern England?
Tara, Oh that's funny about boiling the eggs! You must have had a stove in the back of the room? You'd think that the gentleman would SMELL them! But I agree with his question! What WAS the symbolic significance of 30 boiled eggs? What a wonderful idea to major in languages!
Cato? Maze, that's interesting information. Wasn't that the little guy who aided O.J.?
Mimi, Oh, I love that Free Rice game, too! Thank you for putting a link up for that! And, ok, here's a question: Ubi EST sub ubi? Hmm. Where's the “you” part of that question? “Ubi” is “where”, “est” is “is”, “sub” is “under”, and “ubi” is “where” (again). So how do we know we're talking about YOUR underwear?
Centria, Yes! That's what makes it worth the time, it's, as you say, this: ”true freedom has to do with moving past the hard wiring in our brain and really being able to see other options, other perceptions, other awarenesses.” Thank you for that perspective. To not be tied to our ego anymore. When I was a child I used to think it meant that we shouldn't be proud of ourselves or think that we're “much of a much.” Now I think everyone is a “much of a much” and that there's so much more to be aware of than we ever imagined!
Sherri, I'm so glad you had those wonderful adventures and travels! Life is amazing, isn't it? Well, if you've read this whole thing all the way through to this far, the reader will be rewarded with the following connection (Sherri, your neural nets and my neural nets are in sync here!) Well, yes, I actually DID briefly “have a Latin lover” as they say. But like Sherri, I didn't find him that interesting, and he's filed under the following categories: Peru, cloistered monks (you see, according to him, he had decided to leave that life because he wanted to have sex with women. And, of course, he could have made the whole thing up just to get me to go to bed with him, but #1 I don't care at all, and #2 it didn't take that much creativity to get me to romp around back in the day, and #3 he actually was boring in a certain sense…), and he's also filed under “people who are very, very slender.” Ectomorphs. And that's it! :) I wouldn't have brought him in at all, because he's not a “lover,” because “boring” and “lover” just aren't in the same bin for me, but he's in there because of your thought. Say Sherri, we could make a project of finding lovers from South America who aren't boring… :)
Hey Martha,
cut me some slack puuuuleeeeze, it was 1955 and I was 13 years old when I first said ubi est sub ubi. After 55 years, its deja vu all over again, ubi est my underwear, glasses, address book, keys, phone.
Here's a BBC site with handy Latin phrases for modern day use. Hilarious!!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A218882
in the meantime:
Vah! Denuone latine loquebar? Me ineptum. Interdum modo elabitur.
TRANSLATION:
Oh! Was I speaking Latin again? Silly me. Sometimes it just sort of slips out.
hahaha Yeh, Senor 'Rodrigo' [I hope he's not watching… yeh right!] really wasn't that interesting at all. He seemed to think somehow that declaring his hyper-sexuality was just enough to get my interest, which concerned me a little because I was so not in femme fatale mode… I was studying to be a researcher! I think I was the least 'fatale' I'd ever been!
Anyway, he moved on to someone who was actually in the market and they lived happily ever after. : )
My favourite Latin phrases:
Fiat Lux - Let there be light [That's my school motto; I kinda took it seriously hahah]
Mens sana in corpore sana - A healthy mind in a healthy body
There are some recollections about pater and mater and canus… oh! and Pompeii!
I am so not helping this discussion along.
I agree our ego thoughts are so so so powerful. Particularly if you allow them to run off on their own. I wonder if one ever achieves a loving balance with the ego, meaning it's egging you on to laugh, to have joy, etc. like your heart does. I'm working on it. Wish me luck :D
Enjoy your evenings. And if you haven't join one of the ABBA fests! I have one and so does Enlightened Thinker
Take a chance, man!
Love, sherri
I was in the unLatined generation. My sons however drove their HS Latin teacher to an early retirement. They should never have been in class together. The older one lived to become a Classics scholar, studying both Latin and Greek, in service to theology, though he is not a theologian. He's a coffee roaster.
The other one is an artist. Go Figure.
Oh Martha, I rushed to your blog hoping to see a Latin Lover, sigh! : )
Mimi! That page is interesting! Lots of funny phrases. I thought the (real) book title, “Latin for Daily Occasions,” was sort of an oxymoron… sorta. :) I mean, who uses Latin daily? I don't even have occasions daily–in any language! But Mimi, I promise to cut you all the slack you want. At only 325 calories a slice, slack is a culinary bargain. Especially with chocolate sauce, raisins and brandy. Want some?
Sherri: Oh! Abba fest? Quo est? I'll have to come over and see. Pronto.
I was there cause my mom loves traveling and she was on a one year teacher exchange deal. The most interesting year of my childhood!
Latin was a unifying language for many years for scholarship Martha. Think about it - before the internet and a language like English that has conquered the world, Latin was a way that scholars could communicate throughout Europe on all their favourite abstruse topics. Even in more modern times, I have heard Catholics speak wistfully of how before Vatican 2 they could attend services throughout the world and hear the mass in the same familiar Latin! :) there is more than one way to look at it…
love to you!
Yes Nicole! Love to you, too. And also, I'm so happy for that magical year in your childhood!
i'm so excited about returning to England for the first week and a half of August! my first real vacation for years and the first real vacation there since I left in 1980.
Hi Martha,
I got here because I saw in Nicole's Activity that she commented on your blog and I thought umm… “Latin Lover”?! Then I came here and first saw the picture of Latin script and smiled to myself thinking “naughty me”.
I loved all the stories about Latin classes and they made me remember mine. I went through four years of Latin at high school and hated it at that time. I'm very grateful that I have had this opportunity in the mean while though. It certainly helps when being a language freak like myself! :)
And even though I hated Latin at school, I loved my teacher. He was great! He was funny and like tara's teacher loved to tell stories about the Romans. Actually, when we didn't feel like Latin, we'd ask something like “Teacher [of course, we would call him by his name], what was the story about XY [some ancient Roman-related topic] again?” and if he was in a good mood - there went our Latin class because he'd start to talk and talk and talk. Yet he was also quite strict and knew when it was time to get serious. He had a glass eye so we couldn't cheat during tests because we couldn't tell who he was looking at. He wrote a play about the Trojan War, which was mostly German with only a little Latin in it and which was very funny ( I played Aphrodite of all characters!). So actually while we were preparing our perfomance (which took at least half a year since we made the costumes, the stage setting and everything else by ourselves), we spent at least 1 or 2 hours a week actually meant for Latin practising the play. It was a great success when we performed it, too, all of our friends, even from neighboring schools, came.
Looking back this teacher really knew how to deal with a bunch of adolescent youths who had their heads full of everything but Latin and I'm sure I'm not the only student who remembers him (and maybe even Latin itself) fondly. At the end of our four years after having passed the Examen Latinum (all of us!), we bade him farewell (he also left our school at that time to relocate to Estonia) and he shook my hand and said “Jenny, I hope you will find what you are longing for”. I haven't found it yet. But what he said touched my heart because I realized he had looked right into it.
Oh, and btw - when I hear “ginger” I think of my cat. That's his name. And yes, I think I always will when hearing “ginger” for the rest of my life! :))
Hi Jenny! Nice to meet you! What wonderful stories you tell! Thank you for commenting on my blog. When I saw the email that said “Jenny” had made a comment, I thought, and actually read, “Jenni,” which is somebody else–and an awesome Gaiaster, BTW–that had already been chatting with us above, and I thought, “Gee, I wonder what else she would be saying?” And then I found your message and realized I hadn't noticed the different spelling. Oh dear. Wake up, Martha! Your Latin classes sound wonderful. Oh, I WISH everyone had really great teachers like your Latin teacher to help them engage with the world! He sounds like a wise and loving person. I loved the part about the glass eye, and you never knew toward whom he was looking. And the part where he had really seen you and knew your heart's desire was to find what you are looking for in life. It is so affirming to be really seen be someone in this life! As a teacher myself, I would hope that I can really see my students, but honestly, I know for sure I won't be able to really see them all. I'm glad there are many, many good teachers out there, because if I can't see someone, I have faith that a colleague will. Ginger: I think of strong English breakfast tea, sweetened with sugar and spiced generously with ginger, to make a Middle Eastern not drink that I know as “Zinzibil.” When people say “ginger,” my mind says, “zinzibil.” Thanks for your thoughts.
My latin teacher was Foxy Culbert, and I got 59% at the end of the year because Foxy was a nice guy and couldn't stand the thought of failing any of us, even pitiful, rude, sullen, insolent me….. Truly, I was the worst…. I think I took Latin because my father told me I had to…he also forbade me to take any mickey mouse courses like typing or art…(but I did take typing and he now wishes he had taken it as well on account of the internet and so on…) What I remember from grade 9 Latin is: Leketnemehehinkdiskatera….. obviously the spelling is ridiculous but that is what is etched in my mind… “may I leave the room please?” if we said it in Latin, Foxy, the little sweetie, would let us go and roam around the halls. I would likely have headed out to have a forbid Craven M cigarette in the car park, and then come back to class in time to gather my books… We had a toga party too in that class at the end of the year…. I think I got stoned and ate a lot of grapes…. And of course, I will take to my grave the haunting sounds of bobisbitbimusbitusbunt, eroeriseriterimuseritsuerunt…. like please, I have no foggy clue what any of this is…a conjugation of something! Important!? or something, but perhaps, mine is not to question why…… Perhaps, I am simply an unconscious transmitter of an ancient sound to a future that has little or nothing to do with me… Like a Canticle for Lebowitz or something.Thanks for the memory booster…how wonderful…. the complete rhyme was:”Latin is a languageAs dead as dead can be. It killed the ancient RomansAnd now it is killing me…”and that is all for now from my aged 14 memory bank… Great blogJane
Hi Jane! Your Foxy Culbert sounds like a wonderful teacher! It's amazing the stories that are emerging with people's memories of Latin class. Glad you have good memories of yours even if it wasn't that fun at the time. I guess you had a safe place to try out rudeness, sulleness and insolence. I think we all need that at some point! Thanks for sharing your memories! And your memorized Latin phrases sort of.
hi Jane… those are declensions :) aren't you glad to know! lol
i loved my latin teacher too. He was Mr Thorley and he was also my German teacher (hi Jenny! :) ) and my headmaster for the “middle school” I was in (Form 3 or grade 9 - it was a huge comprehensive so each section had its own headmaster). He was kind and dedicated and could be quite funny at times in an earnest sort of way -
he liked to use the example to differentiate between a declined language like Latin and English by using the sentence “The dog bit the man” In latin, it doesn't matter how you jumble the words, even if you say the man bit the dog, because the man would be in the accusative case and the dog in the nominative so you can still tell who bit whom. :) not so in English!
Oh wow! I'm learning! Thanks, Nicole! Now I know why, when I took ancient Greek briefly (having finally obtained that small chance to study an ancient language before Life intervened and I had to go do something else) I remember o agathos ou agathou eh agathe on agathon and so forth (the good) in all the declentions. But now I know WHY they have declentions! Why didn't they just tell us that during the first semester?!? :)
it's true, we learn so much in school without knowing why… there's nothing wrong with rote learning as it's the only way we can internalise certain kinds of foundational learning, in fact we rely on a lot of rote in Kumon math and reading, which I teach. But it's a means to an end, and I always explain why it's important and necessary.
You sound like a wonderful teacher, Nicole!
you are too kind! but say it anyway, i love it :) hugs
I bought a Latin for Dummies book and I saw in the bookshop that they have Harry Potter books translated to Latin.
lol That's just funny… I guess all that spell work being already in Latin means it's less words to apply the translator to! “Expecto patronum!” “Riddikulus!” “Expelliarmus!”
Hey, I guess they do speak Latin in everyday life after all… at least I apparently do hahahah
Dropping by once again just to say that I am very surprised to see how many of you have studied Latin or other ancient languages. I'm impressed! :)
yes, i had heard that a few years ago… amazing really that there are people who still read Latin well enough to enjoy HP in Latin eh?
And it would be interesting if they do translate the spells from pseudo-Latin (Riddikulus! honestly! sigh lol) to Latin therein…
oh, Jenny, by the way I've also studied New Testament Greek.
striking a dramatic pose for further admiration :)
Chapeau! (I was wondering whether it is something you actually say in French to salute or whether it is just something we say in German (we actually use the French word)?!)
When I did my exam for the Great Latinum we had to transltae from this work. I am sure everybody can identify and translale the text easily:):):)
1] Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertiam qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appellantur. Hi omnes lingua, institutis, legibus inter se differunt. Gallos ab Aquitanis Garumna flumen, a Belgis Matrona et Sequana dividit. Horum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae, propterea quod a cultu atque humanitate provinciae longissime absunt, minimeque ad eos mercatores saepe commeant atque ea quae ad effeminandos animos pertinent important, proximique sunt Germanis, qui trans Rhenum incolunt, quibuscum continenter bellum gerunt. Qua de causa Helvetii quoque reliquos Gallos virtute praecedunt, quod fere cotidianis proeliis cum Germanis contendunt, cum aut suis finibus eos prohibent aut ipsi in eorum finibus bellum gerunt. Eorum una, pars, quam Gallos obtinere dictum est, initium capit a flumine Rhodano, continetur Garumna flumine, Oceano, finibus Belgarum, attingit etiam ab Sequanis et Helvetiis flumen Rhenum, vergit ad septentriones. Belgae ab extremis Galliae finibus oriuntur, pertinent ad inferiorem partem fluminis Rheni, spectant in septentrionem et orientem solem. Aquitania a Garumna flumine ad Pyrenaeos montes et eam partem Oceani quae est ad Hispaniam pertinet; spectat inter occasum solis et septentriones.”
Per aspera ad astra!
omygosh! My faith in my language skills just totally evaporated. I thought chapeau simply meant 'hat' in French; if it's a greeting I wasn't aware. And then Albert completely phases me with some stuff that my Harry Potter latin never prepared me for!
Oh dear… back to the books then. Sighhh :D
Oh yes, I do remember! We did it in our fourth year (I think) and we also had to memorize the first paragraphs of De Bello Gallico.
'Chapeau' is “hat” in French but in German we use it as a salute to pay respects when we're impressed. I'm not sure though if the French use it in that context, too. Btw: usually a gesture pretending to lift an imaginary hat is accompanied by the expression “chapeau”. In German it would be: “Ich ziehe meinen Hut” or simply “Hut ab!” if we express how impressed we are.
Martha, look at where your Latin Lover has taken us! ;))
Just a few thoughts from a Passerby: :-)
After reading through all these comments it seems as though I've somehow earned a privilege to connect. I no longer recall what connection led me here however it was an amusement worth my time and gave me quite an enjoyable sense of nostalgia as I partook of my own personal reminiscing.
Although I did not study Latin or Greek for that matter I did formally study Spanish in depth during my secondary education and on into college for a time. My mom who was born in San Juan, P.R. and my grandmother gave me the best leg up on that front. I also studied French and in fact was the first student in my entire school system to do so simultaneously which then required special permission. I also took a night class of enough German to know I preferred Romance languages and I sought to privately learn Italian from one of my mom's friends. Mom was frequently teased about Spanish being so much the same thing since anyone could hear and see the similarities. Anyway, I digress.
It occurred to me that something I've thought for a very long time regarding the educational system's redeeming qualities was that the quality of the teachers for Foreign Languages always seemed to be accompanied with deep passion for their subject and subsequent appreciation for the students who esteemed the opportunity to learn of different languages and cultures. Today we have “Save the Music” seeking to keep music programs in school and it's certainly valuable. It truly makes a difference in many student's lives.
When I was in school a Sociology teacher was asked “How can values be taught in school?” He set about to create a thought provoking project that took at least 6-8 weeks called “The Kidney Machine” which embodied the area of situational ethics where small groups were all given the same real life case study of a set of 16 individuals on a list to get Dialysis back when the machinery was both limited and expensive. The object was to determine which 2 individuals you would save with this equipment and how you would as a group determine your choices knowing you would later just as the real life cases be expected to justify your responses.
I just wonder when people will begin to see the benefit of Foreign Language study in general the way so many other things have been deemed “unnecessary” for a well rounded education. The first 15 years of my marriage were spent in a variety of styles of churches. It always amazed me how narrow people viewed missionary activity and how little people cared to learn of other cultures. It immediately makes me think of how few learned another language because that task traditionally also included exposure to the culture to hopefully absorb the mindset to more easily think in another language. Personally I cannot help but think that if more folks remained committed to this educational component in formative years we would see less pervasive bigotry and political division as well as disregard for others in general just because someone has different cultural values. Not everyone can afford to travel extensively or might choose to if able but if more kids were educated to understand alternate cultures along with their depth of histories they would maintain more synapses to retain values of diversity later in life. Has anyone else ever wondered if our society here in the U.S. will return to valuing others through this medium?
Soul Friend, I am in the vocation of Education and all of these topics have come up bit by bit for inclusion in any qualitative improvements in educational systems worldwide. There first needs to be a goal to which the system is heading… they're all scattered right now, trying to use practices that were designed to keep people in the 'work for a job' mode, and 'compete, compete, compete'.
Patches and fixes have been thrown on but not with a concrete vision for education, which should be to prepare all people for contribution to wellbeing of the [now global] community. It will be interesting to see what the new President will do in this regard.
I'm actually glad you commented because you helped to clear my thoughts on a few things. Thanks.
Blessings, sherri