ista verba non significare mihi videtur quod opinaris, seu, ista non quae verba quaeris sunt

English can be considered a particularly difficult language for many reasons. Homonyms especially often fall victim to those who know what they want to say but don’t quite know how to say it. As annoying as it can be to mentally correct the torturous little things while reading, I personally find it much more distracting when an author uses a word that looks like - but isn’t - the one he wants, not because the word he puts down sounds the same and he fails to catch the error, but because the author genuinely believes the word he’s using means what he wants it to mean rather than what it actually does. Hence the title of the post: “I don’t think those words mean what you think [they mean], or Those are not the words you’re looking for.”

diligentia grammaticae

Last week an “author/neuroscientist” by the name of Dan Agin had this to say in The Huffington Post. All in all, it’s an interesting comment on the changing place of books and print materials in an increasingly digital world.

My quibble is not with the gist of the article, nor indeed any part of his argument. Perhaps even worse, it comes at the concluding moment. In order to give his ending a punch, Agin decides to use a witty phrase in Latin: “Requiescant in pace, big print publishing. The run is finished.” After all, big words in a foreign language - better yet, in a ‘dead’ foreign language - are highly impressive, and most people know what RIP means even if they can’t tell you what it stands for. Dan Agin has dug up the Latin, but he still doesn’t know what it says. It’s like resurrection gone wrong.

veni, vidi, vici

Dear Academics (et al.) Who Like to Make Jokes at Classicists' Expense:

I understand the urge to parody things in Latin, especially Caesar's little quip - hell, Cicero started us off in the Pro Ligario, so we can even cite ancient precedent. When done well, it can be quite funny, and I always enjoy a laugh at Caesar's (or Cicero's) expense.

What I do not appreciate is when, in your attempt to come up with a funny substitute for "vici", you end up with an actual Latin word you did not mean. Case in point.

The English is funny; the Latin is not.

Veterni is either the vocative/nominative, masculine plural or the genitive, masculine/neuter singular form of the adjective veternus, -a, -um, "old" or "ancient"; alternatively, it is the genitive form of the masculine noun veternus, -i, "old age" or "lethargy" (as brought by old age or sickness). The adjective may be used substantivally (on a completely unrelated note: why does Google not recognize that word?), but veterni, in whatever form, is not a verb. Ever. One cannot simply go around sticking an -i at the end of a recognizable stem (English or Latin) and hope that it looks like a first person singular perfect. More to the point, the joke is no longer funny if you "make up" an actual word in the language you are trying to parody.

amo, amas, amat

One of the broadcasters for the Ravens-Steelers matchup on Sunday Night Football two weeks ago burst out with this illuminating phrase live on air: "Fair caught!" There was some sort of "at the such-and-such yard line" afterwards, but I have to admit I wasn't really paying attention to anything except that egregious butchering of the English language.

"Fair catch" is a noun phrase. In shorthand broadcaster-speak, "Fair catch at the 20" is perfectly acceptable; the verb, "made", is implied. But the word "catch" in this phrase is never a verb, and saying "fair caught" makes you sound absolutely illiterate. Not all of us who watch football notice this stuff, or care, but some of us actually have a care for the language we speak. Bottom line: the crunch of a helmet-to-helmet tackle may be delightful, but pulling a Jack-the-Ripper on grammar is not.

id est

Many people have trouble keeping track of the difference between ‘its’ and ‘it's’. Given the prevalence of the possessive apostrophe in English, that's sort of understandable. Well, when it comes to the illiterate, at least, and those whose jobs don't rely on proper spelling and grammar.

But I never want to see the two mixed up in (semi-)reputable news publications, even online ones, ever again. (Huffington Post and NYTimes, I'm looking at you.)

cogito ergo deleo

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) - who is currently trumping up his experience as a medical doctor and making a rather poor attempt at covering up the fact that his colleagues won't take Medicaid patients because they simply don't pay as well - just used the term "less good" on the floor, and not in the sense of "to do less good" but in the sense of "I don't know the word 'worse'" (I would even have taken "not as good").

You could object that "less good" might be used when you want to acknowledge that, say, the result of patient care through Medicaid is not exactly bad, but rather not as good as that provided by private insurance. I still say it's wrong, except maybe in rhetorical play: "a less powerful tool, and therefore less good", or "Some Good (and Less Good) News". The last time the phrase "less good" was popular on its own was when it appeared in a (much-ridiculed) quote from a Microsoft exec describing Windows Vista. Coincidentally, that's about the quality of oratory coming from Republicans at the moment. Bottom line: go back to grammar school, Dr. Coburn.

And Sen. Hatch (R-UT), learn how to articulate if you want anyone to listen (I really can't say "understand"). Though maybe it would be smart to keep a lid on your "holy war" against health care reform, unless you actually want to attract the attention of Homeland Security.

Meanwhile, Republicans continue to parade their ignorance. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) just compared reading through the 2,074-page HCR bill to reading the New Testament in Greek, saying "it's better to have someone help translate." Seriously? I get that you can't read Greek - I don't actually expect you to know Greek, though it would be nice - but apparently you can't understand English either, even legalese. Oh wait, isn't that your job?