On 2009-09-10, at 23:13, John Cowan wrote: > Brian Harvey scripsit: > >>> The whole of Gaul is quartered into three halves. >> >> I don't get it. "partes"=parts; "divisa"=divided. > > It's a (purported) school mistranslation. But nothing to the howlers > I used to commit in Latin class. > >> (This quotation is about all I remember from high school Latin >> except for amo, >> amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant (I hope that's right).)
A rough paraphrase of the beginning of Sellar and Yeatman's classic _1066 And All That_ goes that Julius Caesar said to the Britons `Veni, Vidi, Vici', which, being classically trained, he pronounced `Weeny, Weedy, and Weak-y'. Once they realized he had divided them into Three Parts, they immediately surrendered. (Don't miss this book if you are a fan either of British history or horrendous pedagogy, it is hilarious either way.) Don't worry, they get the rest of history about as wrong as that. Of course, from my own Latin studies, the best howler is the classic `Sic transit gloria mundi' (`Gloria got very ill on the bus on Monday'). Irrelevantly yours -- v _______________________________________________ r6rs-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.r6rs.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/r6rs-discuss
