Ordinary Gweilo

What is “widely used by lawyers to cheat you, by doctors to scare you witless and by houseplant sellers to shift their wares?” From The Economist, comes a review of a new book that attempts to put Latin back into everyday life.

I was going to say that I studied Latin at school, but that really wouldn’t be fair. I spent a few years sitting in a classroom whilst Latin was being taught, but failed to pick up very much at all. I’ve never had much of an aptitude for languages, but what I have learned has come not from school but from holidays in France and living in Hong Kong, and frankly that’s not very much.

There are insults here for every occasion, from air rage (Heia, amice, utrum illae sunt sarcinae tuae, an modo Carthaginem despoliasti?, “Hey, pal, is that carry-on luggage or did you just sack Carthage?”) to computer trouble (Assume plicam damnatam, o tu moles muscaria muscerdarum, “Download the goddam file, you bug-ridden piece of shit”).

Plus the phrase I have used as the title of this post, which may come in useful for Conrad one day…