Latin For The Illiterati: A Modern Guide To An Ancient Language

351 Pages·1.165 MB·

by  Jon R. Stone

“Latin for the Illiterati is a perfect companion for every reader,
student,and scholar on his or her lifelong journey.”– Ingram
“Stone … has penned one of those rare reference works that is both
highly affordable and highly useful … While many resources supply
similar information … few sources also include such a range of
sayings and phrases,in this case well over 5,000.In addition,the last
section of Stone’s work is a real boon to reference librarians …
Highly recommended.”– Library Journal
“If you’re a student trying to improve your vocabulary,this is a great
book.If you’re a law student trying to figure out what phrases meant
before they meant what they mean,this is a great book.For those
who have forgotten the three years of parochial-school Latin,this is
a really great book.”– Publisher’s Weekly
“Latin for the Illiteratiwill be a terminus ad quem(i.e.,finishing point) for
many a question about the terra incognita(i.e.,unknown land) that even
common Latin expressions are to many people today.[The book],of
course,delves more deeply into the Latin lexicon than a polyglot
source … and therein lies its value.Bene!”– Rettig on Reference
“A ready reference dream come true …”– American Libraries
Also by Jon R.Stone
More Latin for the Illiterati(1999)
The Routledge Dictionary of Latin Quotations(2005)
The Routledge Book ofWorld Proverbs(2006)
Dictionnaire Rose des Locutions Latines(2007)
and
A Guide to the End of the World(1993)
On the Boundaries of American Evangelicalism(1997)
Prime-Time Religion:An Encyclopedia of Religious Broadcasting(1997)
The Craft of Religious Studies(1998)
Expecting Armageddon:Essential Readings in Failed Prophecy(2000)
The Essential Max Müller:On Language,Mythology,and Religion(2002)
Readings in American Religious Diversity(2007)
L A T I N
FOR THE ILLITERATI
A Modern Phrase Book for an Ancient Language
Second Edition
Jon R.Stone
First published 1996
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue,New York,NY 10017
Second edition published in 2009
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue,New York,NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,an informa business
© 2009 Jon R.Stone
Introduction © 2009 Richard LaFleur
Typeset by Saxon Graphics Ltd,Derby

All rights reserved.No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic,mechanical,or other means,now
known or hereafter invented,including photocopying and recording,or in
any information storage or retrieval system,without permission in writing
from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN 10: 0-415-77767-4 (pbk)
ISBN 13:978-0-415-77767-4 (pbk)
To my mother
Bobbie Jean Stone
who taught me my first Latin words:
Amo,Amas,Amat
CONTENTS
Foreword by Richard A.LaFleur ix
Preface to the First Edition xii
Preface to the Second Edition xvi
References xix
Pronunciation Guide xxi
Latin for the Illiterati
Verba (Common Words and Expressions) 1
Dicta (Common Phrases,Mottoes,and
Familiar Sayings) 141
Abbreviations 261
Miscellaneous 277
English–Latin Index 295
FOREWORD
by Richard A.LaFleur
“Latin was the parent tongue to every known language ever spoken
by anyone on the planet earth!”Well,not quite true,but that’s what
a student of mine exuberantly penned as part of his answer to a test
question some years back.That bit of an overstatement made him an
illiteratus,I suppose,but a well intentioned one.And I must admit I
was partly to blame,because,like most of my discipuli(that’s Latin for
“students,”), the poor lad had likely heard me referring to our
beloved lingua Latina as “The Mother Tongue” at least twice or
thrice weekly throughout the course of our semester together.
My own first encounter with the immortal language was at age
12 in a 7th-grade elective Latin class.Then it was Charlton Heston
in the 1959 blockbuster film Ben Hur,and Kirk Douglas’s Spartacus
the next year,that had me hooked for life:I could hardly sit still in
my seat,I was so enthralled by those chariot races and gladiatorial
combats; forty years later Russell Crowe as General Maximus
Decimus Meridius in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator had much the same
effect, and my wife Alice and I watched every single episode of
HBO’s Rome mini-series multiple times. Gladiator swept the
Oscars, capturing five awards including “Best Film” and “Best
Actor”and demonstrating not merely the continuing enthusiasm
of Americans for “sword and sandal”movies,but more generally the
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FOREWORD BY RICHARD A.LAFLEUR
West’s widespread interest in ancient Roman civilization,not least
for its vast influence on our own culture.
A large part of that influence,and of our fascination with the
Romans, derives not merely from gladiators and charioteers but
from the intimate connection of our language to theirs.English is
not, strictly speaking, a “Romance language” (the term denotes
“Romans,” not “romantics”!), as are Italian, Spanish, Portuguese,
French,and Romanian,which evolved out of the language of the
conquerors,each in its own way in its own region of the Roman
Empire.Nevertheless at least 60% of English is “Latinate,”deriving
either directly or indirectly from Latin.Both languages are part of
the vast Indo-European (IE) linguistic family, which includes
languages throughout most of Europe as well as Iranian and
languages of India deriving from the ancient Sanskrit.English is
descended from the Germanic branch of the IE family,Latin from
the ancient Italic, yielding a kind of “sibling” relationship that
accounts for the vast number of cognates that exist in the two
languages,such as “mother”and mater,“brother”and frater,“two”
and duo,etc.But the majority of English words—like “maternal,”
“fraternal,” and “duet”—that are actually “derived” from Latin
flowed into the language due to a variety of circumstances,
including the Roman occupation of Britain,the Norman invasion
of England,when the Anglo-Saxons adopted much of the speech
of their French conquerors into their own discourse,and by direct
borrowing from Latin that continues even today, especially for
medical and other bio-scientific terminology.
The result,as Jon R.Stone notes in his Preface to this immensely
helpful libellus (“little volume”),is that Latin is ubiquitous (from
ubique “everywhere”) in our language and culture. Jon, now a
professor of Religious Studies at the California State University at
Long Beach,had studied lots of German and Greek by the time he
commenced his doctoral study,but not much Latin,and so when
he encountered the Latin cornucopia(cornu+ copia) that turned up in
the books he was faced with reading for his graduate exams—he
cites Rudolf Otto’s The Idea of the Holyin particular—he found the
experience, as most folks nowadays would, more than a little
daunting.Like all good scholars,though,he did not shy away from
the unfamiliar,but instead began compiling lists (a man after my
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FOREWORD BY RICHARD A.LAFLEUR
own heart!) of the countless Latin words,phrases,famous quota-
tions, and abbreviations that he encountered in his extensive
reading,lists that over several years he augmented and eventually
formalized and that led ultimately to the first edition of Latin for the
Illiterati(LFTI) and then to the companion volumes,also published
by Routledge,More Latin for the Illiterati,which focuses specifically
on the Latin terminology common in the areas of medicine,law,
and religion, and The Routledge Dictionary of Quotations:The
Illiterati’s Guide to Latin Maxims,Proverbs,and Sayings,a wonderful
collection of some 8,000 quotable quotes from the ancients in the
tradition of Erasmus’s Adagia. Professor Stone’s main purpose in
authoring these three books has been to make the vast treasure of
Latin in English more accessible,to educate,inform,and entertain
readers,while helping perpetuate the contributions of the Romans
and their ennobling language to our own language and culture.
Everyone who reads widely (or savors confronting the challenge of
a New York Times crossword puzzle!) should own all three volumes
and keep them near at hand.
This edition of LFTI is much expanded from the first,and so
offers up and illuminates an even richer trove of the Latin we
encounter everywhere, every day in the English-speaking world.
For the second edition, Professor Stone has added more than a
thousand new entries,mostly to his collection of Dicta(“Common
Phrases,Mottoes,and Familiar Sayings”),thus making that section
about as extensive as his compilation of Verba (“Common Words
and Expressions”).He has also done some useful reorganizing of
these two main sections of the book,helpfully expanded the Index
by some 500 entries,supplied a list of the writers identified as the
sources of many of the quotations,and included a list of common
prefixes,conjunctions,particles and prepositions.
Let this invaluable handbook be the vade mecum (you can look
that up right here and now,if you don’t know the meaning) for your
adventures in 21st-century Latin,and,as Saint Augustine said,in a
different context and of a different book,tolle lege,tolle lege!
Richard A.LaFleur
University of Georgia
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