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Ladies and gentlemen, your new mid-day diversion. We’ll post a new quiz at this time every weekday. Let’s kick things off with a Latin exam from Brett Savage.
Latin is known as the “dead language” because not too many people who aren’t actively engaged in various religious ceremonies have a pressing reason to use it. Save, of course, a select few, including: lawyers, arborists/botanists and entomologists.
We’ve briefly resuscitated this root language in both a charitable effort to revive the moribund word and test your personal knowledge of the ancestral tongue that helped spawn the romance languages. The following are Latin phrases still very much alive and kicking in highly-specific niche fields of study. Can you tell whether the phrase is a legal term, plant/tree, insect or biblical quote?
This is from a blog post I wrote a few weeks ago. I was curious about Bibendum. Y’know, Bib. The Michelin Man.
“Nunc est bibendum ”
(Now is the time for drinking)
– Horace, Odes
The proper response to “Nunc est bibendum” is “nec mora nec requies” (no sooner said than done)
Dude!
So it all makes sense now. I’m a little slow. You got your Michelin tires, your Michelin restaurant guide and your Michelin map and hey, you are all set! Chef helped with the translation, along with the evil Google.
Edit: Here is a much better translation, courtesy of steambike:
“nec mora nec requies” - Virgil from Aeneid Book XII meaning roughly “neither delay, nor rest” or, in the local vernacular, Git’er done!
posted by fixedgear on 2-4-2008 at 11:15 am
Took Latin for 3 years. It was required.
Needless to say, I failed the quiz. :(
posted by Lea on 2-4-2008 at 2:19 pm
I’m only chiming in because there have only been two comments and I want this feature to continue - that despite getting an embarrassing 45%. Alas - Cura nihil aliud nisi ut valeas.
posted by Roger on 2-4-2008 at 2:40 pm
Got 11 out of 12, but that’s prob cause I’m fluent in Portuguese, Spanish and French…I could easily guess the meaning even tho I don’t speak a work in Latin…
posted by Insolent_Minx on 2-4-2008 at 2:49 pm
Woot, 10 out of 12!
Spanish all the way, baby.
posted by Aemi on 2-4-2008 at 5:22 pm
I guess that Latin class I took paid off, even though I slept through it. :) All correct!
posted by Jen on 2-4-2008 at 5:24 pm
I got eight of 12, and I wasn’t familiar with any of them. And I never took a Latin class.
posted by Miss Cellania on 2-4-2008 at 7:48 pm
10 out of 12…3 years of high school Latin, plus some brushing up recently in preparation for graduate studies–and I guessed on almost every one of them. Ironically, the only one I knew for certain was the source of the last phrase.
Oh, and if anyone’s interested, be sure to check out Vicipaedia - Wikipedia in Latin. Vere quisquam–et omnia–in interrete provenire potestis!
posted by Bob on 2-4-2008 at 8:08 pm
Whoops! I think you mean “etymologist” unless you are talking about insects…
posted by John on 2-4-2008 at 9:40 pm
No whoops this time. We were talking about insects.
posted by Jason on 2-4-2008 at 9:53 pm
11 out of 12… I knew that BA in classics was going to be good for something.
posted by Meg on 2-5-2008 at 8:44 am
I can’t believe I actually got 9 of 12. Must be that Spanish. Or guessing.
posted by Julia on 2-5-2008 at 5:18 pm