“Fancy a grown man saying hujus hujus hujus as if he were proud of it it is not english and do not make SENSE.”
“I observe from the work of this class that the Gauls hav atacked the camp with shouts they hav frightened the citizens they hav killed the enemy with darts and arows and blamed the belgians. They hav also continued to march into Italy. Would it not be more interesting if they did something new?”
Geoffrey Willans, How To Be Topp, 1958
(yes, the quoted text is typed correctly)
Accurate translations
Impilia cum crepidis Socks with sandals From a theatre companyThe Belfry Theatre in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada included this in a fundraising letter:
Less accurate translations
… with thanks to Shakib Otaqui and to Punch magazine’s Latin Tourist Phrase Book, 1979. Even less accurateCanada’s Globe & Mail newspaper asked readers to add a letter to a familiar non-English expression to give it a new meaning. Some used Latin:
Insults
These are from How to Insult, Abuse and Insinuate in Classical Latin, by Michelle Lovric and Nikiforos Doxiadis Mardas, published by Random House in 1998 and cited in the Pith & Vinegar newsletter. More good onesThese used to appear at www.biopsych.net but are no longer there. They were listed as public domain, so here are some of them:
Latin calculatorXXV times IV? Nothing to it with this handy tool. Books for keenersYou may be interested in two translations by Alexander Lenard of A.A. Milne’s “Winnie the Pooh” books.
Green Eggs and HamThe Dr. Seuss classic “Green Eggs and Ham” has been rendered into Latin by Terence and Jennifer Tunberg, husband and wife professors in the Department of Classical Languages at the University of Kentucky. It’s available from Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers Inc. as “Virent Ova! Viret Perna!!” Barnes & Noble has it, but Chapters and Amazon don’t seem to as of Sept. 2003.”I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-Am” comes out as “Sum ‘Pincerna’ nominatus, Famulari … nunc paratus!” Translation, Dictionaries etc.
The NewsWant the news in Latin? This Finnish site has it. In September 2011, the first headline was, “Familia Gaddafiana in Algeria,” which is not so hard. The rest of the site is, alas, in Finnish.Rock and Roll goes LatinIin 1995 Finnish literature professor Jukka Ammondt recorded an album of Elvis songs sung in Latin. It includes Nunc Hic Aut Numquam (“It’s Now or Never”), Non Adamare Non Possum (“Can’t Help Falling in Love”), Cor Ligneum (“Wooden Heart”), and Tenere Me Ama (“Love Me Tender”). You might ask, “Why?” and your answer is at the bottom of this page. |
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