Fight Night: English vs Latin
When people ask me what’s my biggest language pet-peeve I abandon all decorum and start ranting about how English language butchered Latin both from a semantic perspective, and a phonetic one.
Hi. My name is Barbara, welcome to my Ted Talk.
People usually get upset over derogatory words, slang, swear words, and that makes perfect sense. Nobody would second guess having these as language pet-peeves.
Also, yes I live in a reality where asking people what’s their Hogwarts House and language pet-peeve is a social norm.
It’s not for everybody. I like to live dangerously.
So, among the perfectly respectable answers in regards to offensive language, here I stand, fighting my own battle which sees British barbarians in the blue corner, and Roman snobs in the red corner.
Ding Ding Ding
Round one:
It’s common knowledge that English language is three languages stacked on top of each other. It’s all fun and games when English is creatively borrowing from Anglo Saxon and Germanic. The world is your oyster, young English!
But then, Latin comes along with fifty million grammar rules and the first punch is thrown.
Round two:
Here we have teenager English language who thinks it’s a rebel and tells Latin grandpa, and I quote: ‘You’re not my real dad! You can’t tell me what to do!’
Latin worked so hard to build a nice and welcoming home for English. It rests its eyes just a minute. Definitely not asleep. What does he get in return?
Emo English draws all over the walls and decides that ‘quid pro quo’ now means ‘an exchange’.
Latin wakes up, looks around, and goes: ‘Didn’t I tell you that when we talk about exchanging things we use Do Ut Des? And Quid Pro Quo literally means a mistake’?
Round three:
Things are getting hectic in Europe, English thinks it knows best than everyone else and to be hip starts to add vowels here and there.
‘That’ll make spelling bee championships much more interesting!’
And, just to make sure Latin is not asleep but really dead, decides that pronouncing things the right way is for losers, and Vice Versa.
Ding Ding Ding
Fight is over, English won.
Latin is on the ground bleeding, everyone is chanting ‘Quid pro quo! Quid pro quo!’ and nobody can summon demons even if they tried.
The moral of the story is: I can’t win this battle for Latin. The number of people who grew up pronouncing ‘v-ice ver-sah’ and singing along to Disney’s 'Be Prepared' without questioning the line’ Of course, quid pro quo, you're expected, to take certain duties on board’ is too high compared to those Italians who studied Latin at school.
But wait, who is that masked avenger stomping in with such majestic music?
It’s Italy’s hero! Pronouncing-all-the-letters!
Connecticut! Pow
Arkansas! Kapow
Worcestershire sauce! Flying kick
And for the final punch: Greenwitch!
Ding Ding Ding
Image: via
Hi. My name is Barbara, welcome to my Ted Talk.
People usually get upset over derogatory words, slang, swear words, and that makes perfect sense. Nobody would second guess having these as language pet-peeves.
Also, yes I live in a reality where asking people what’s their Hogwarts House and language pet-peeve is a social norm.
It’s not for everybody. I like to live dangerously.
So, among the perfectly respectable answers in regards to offensive language, here I stand, fighting my own battle which sees British barbarians in the blue corner, and Roman snobs in the red corner.
Ding Ding Ding
Round one:
It’s common knowledge that English language is three languages stacked on top of each other. It’s all fun and games when English is creatively borrowing from Anglo Saxon and Germanic. The world is your oyster, young English!
But then, Latin comes along with fifty million grammar rules and the first punch is thrown.
Round two:
Here we have teenager English language who thinks it’s a rebel and tells Latin grandpa, and I quote: ‘You’re not my real dad! You can’t tell me what to do!’
Latin worked so hard to build a nice and welcoming home for English. It rests its eyes just a minute. Definitely not asleep. What does he get in return?
Emo English draws all over the walls and decides that ‘quid pro quo’ now means ‘an exchange’.
Latin wakes up, looks around, and goes: ‘Didn’t I tell you that when we talk about exchanging things we use Do Ut Des? And Quid Pro Quo literally means a mistake’?
Round three:
Things are getting hectic in Europe, English thinks it knows best than everyone else and to be hip starts to add vowels here and there.
‘That’ll make spelling bee championships much more interesting!’
And, just to make sure Latin is not asleep but really dead, decides that pronouncing things the right way is for losers, and Vice Versa.
Ding Ding Ding
Fight is over, English won.
Latin is on the ground bleeding, everyone is chanting ‘Quid pro quo! Quid pro quo!’ and nobody can summon demons even if they tried.
The moral of the story is: I can’t win this battle for Latin. The number of people who grew up pronouncing ‘v-ice ver-sah’ and singing along to Disney’s 'Be Prepared' without questioning the line’ Of course, quid pro quo, you're expected, to take certain duties on board’ is too high compared to those Italians who studied Latin at school.
But wait, who is that masked avenger stomping in with such majestic music?
It’s Italy’s hero! Pronouncing-all-the-letters!
Connecticut! Pow
Arkansas! Kapow
Worcestershire sauce! Flying kick
And for the final punch: Greenwitch!
Ding Ding Ding
Image: via
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