General Chat

Well who stayed awake during Latin classes at school, who can translate all those irritating phrases which are plastered all over every day life yet unknown to the writers of Breaking Bad and Arsene Wenger.

Here is a quiz:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/10511235/Take-the-test-how-well-do-you-know-your-Latin.html

fwiw my score 85% :-( so no gold star then

Up Pompeii
:-D

Well, you did better than me Rollo....75%

O me miserum!! :-S

45%..........and that's for someone who did not do Latin at school !

Having said that......some of the questions are things we say in everyday speech.

95%. I knew I'd eventually find a use for those 6 years of Latin at school though I think my old Latin mistress is probably turning in her grave at the one I got wrong.

50% for me and I did Latin for a few terms at school and always came bottom of the class.Even though I quite enjoyed the language.I'm happy enough wit h50% after more than 40 years..Thought I would get ZERO lol

1974: School timetable onThursdays:

Double English, followed by Double French
LUNCH
Double Spanish followed by Double Latin

By Thursday evening, I was very confused.... which is probably why I scored 60%

When did you do Double Dutch ?

My OH swears at me in French ( which I understand ) and Spanish, which I don't. She got 100% and is now confirmed in her idea of y.t. as an imbecile :-(
She has been singing rude songs in Latin ... I had no idea she was a Frankie Howard fan.

It pains me to say so but I think Latin should be much more widely taught in schools, not Mandarin Chinese as the p.m. wants.

80% - I knew all the legal ones as I've been reading criminology stuff for 30 years :-D

Now Latin is a language
As dead as dead can be
It killed the Ancient Romans
And now it's killing me

Even my Latin teacher saw the funny side when she looked at the back of my jotter ... 60% maybe :-(

:-(55%

65% - and never did Latin

never did Latin

70%

probably got that cos I can yabber in Italian (not fluent!)

Do I get a red white & green star?

:-)

100% - and I was awful at Latin but good at English.

75% never did Latin but I have a reasonable understanding of Spanish which helped.

I can't believe I got ad lib wrong!

90%, (I got ad lib and alias wrong), but not bad for someone who failed latin o-level.

Oh dear......I got an O.level in Latin and only got 60% in the test...My excuse is that I was out last night till midnight....and it was 1951 when I got my O level!!!
In those days you had to have Latin to go to university....how times have changed!

Quod erat demonstrandum..........QED....remember that one from maths! :-S

Illegitimi non carborundum

:-D

This site is very interesting (but not very useful):

http://www.youswear.com/index.asp?language=Latin

70% - and no Latin Lessons :-D

Although our Math Teacher probably did tell us the Latin and its translation for QED, we used to say 'Quite Easily Done'

Got per se and alias and ad hoc wrong. 85%

Quite pleased, but (unlike Guinevere) it was one of my favourite subjects at my alma mater. Have just been reading a biography of a Victorian Latin tutor who uses Latin expressions in both his writing and his poetry. And I felt like a total ignoramus, as I had no real idea what he was on about. I blame my Latin teacher at school - not the student's fault if the tutor has failed to teach him or her properly :-) ;-)

Thanks for that mental test, Rollo. Makes a change from usual bellum belli bello bellorum bellatis bellant (or something similar) :-)

Scientia dicitur esse periculosum paulo