February 13, 2011

Multae manus onus levant

Recording also available at iPadio using this link.
Today's saying is Multae manus onus levant. In English: "Many hands lighten the load."

Cooperation is itself a word derived from Latin roots; co-operation literally means "together-working," which is the metaphorical message of today's proverb: Many hands lighten the load. The load is still the same, of course - but the burden on each pair of hands becomes lighter when people are working together. In my online classes, I really benefit from being able to involve the students in the day-to-day operations of the class by having them read and respond to each other's writing. Instead of me being the only audience for their written work, the students read each other's blog posts and webpages; none of what they write is meant for my eyes only. So, I guess you could say in this case that "many eyes improve the writing," Multi oculi litteras excolunt, if you want a literary twist on today's saying: Multae manus onus levant.

In terms of proverb style, notice the nice alliteration at the beginning of the sentence: multae manus. If you wanted to imitate that in English, you might be justified in rendering the phrase "helping hands," which is not a literal translation but one which captures the style of the original. Luckily, though, I was able to get in some alliteration in the second half of the sentence - lighten the load - where Latin had all the alliteration up front. :-)

For those of you who are fans of macrons, here is the Latin written with macrons:

Multae manūs onus levant.



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February 12, 2011

Menti quolibet ire licet

Recording also available at iPadio using this link.
Today's saying is Menti quolibet ire licet. In English: "The mind may go wherever it wants."

You hear a lot of talk about "academic freedom" which, in my experience, is not all it is cracked up to be (I sure did not experience any "academic freedom" in my brief stint as a tenure-track professor, that is for sure - just the opposite). But regardless of what an institution does or fails to do to protect academic freedom, the mind IS STILL FREE: our minds can go wherever we want them to go. No one can stop you from thinking, imagining, and creating, if that is how you choose to use the powers of your mind. You can use your mind to travel to the surface of another planet, you can use your mind to imagine a world governed by truth and justice - even if you cannot visit such places in bodily form... yet! Menti quolibet ire licet.

There is some lovely word play here in the Latin with the verb licet and the adverbial compound, quolibet, which is made up of the directional quo and libet. The verb licet is what is allowed (as in the root of the English word "license"), and the verb libet is about what you want (as in the Latin word which we also know in English: libido). The sound play between licet and libet nicely reinforces the meaning of the proverb.

For those of you who are fans of macrons, here is the Latin written with macrons:

Mentī quōlibet īre licet.



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February 11, 2011

Week 3: Repetitio

So, here are the proverbs from this week, along with a link to each podcast:
Plus here are the previous proverbs:
I'll be back next week with more! :-)
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February 09, 2011

Nihil sine labore

Recording also available at iPadio using this link.
Today's saying is Nihil sine labore. In English: "Nothing without effort."

I thought this would be a good follow-up to yesterday's post about Minerva and the Athenian: you have to take responsibility for yourself and work to achieve your own goals. Nothing is going to happen without effort on your part. One of the paradoxes of teaching is that it is really the students who teach themselves; the teacher's effort means nothing if the students do not make an equal or greater effort on their own. Personally, I would love it if all my students took charge of their own learning so that they would keep on learning no matter what happens to me: if I am kidnapped by space aliens, I still want my students to keep on working and keep on learning. If they work, they will learn, with or without me. And if they don't work, they are not going to learn anything. "No pain, no gain," as we say in English: Nihil sine labore.

In terms of Latin grammar, this is another one of those sentences without a verb. You can translate it just as a phrase in English - "Nothing without effort" - but you can also choose to translate it as a complete sentence, if you want: "Nothing (is gained) without effort" or "Nothing (happens) without effort." Latin is quite able to have a sentence where the verb is implied; it is only in English that we really need to have an explicit verb in order to make a complete sentence.

For those of you who are fans of macrons, here is the Latin written with macrons:

Nihil sine labōre.



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February 08, 2011

Minerva auxiliante, manum etiam admove

Recording also available at iPadio using this link.
Today's saying is Minerva auxiliante, manum etiam admove. In English: "With Athena as your helper, move your arm, too!"

This is one of many Latin proverbs that go back to an Aesop's fable. The story goes that an Athenian gentleman was traveling on a ship, and the ship foundered in a storm. While the other passengers started swimming for shore, the Athenian instead prayed to the goddess Athena (whose Latin name is Minerva), asking her to rescue him. Another man swam by and shouted at the Athenian, who by now was practically submerged in the waves, "Athena's help is all well and good, but you better start moving your arms, too!" Or, as we say in English, "God helps them that help themselves." This is an especially good proverb for students, since Minerva is the goddess of wisdom, as well as being the patron goddess of Athens. So, it's great if the goddess can help you out, Minerva auxiliante, but you need to set your own hand to the task as well: manum etiam admove.

In terms of Latin grammar, you get a nice ablative absolute to start this saying off: Minerva auxiliante. For another example of an ablative absolute, see this previous post: Hodie vivendum, omissa praeteritorum cura. As these two examples show, the ablative absolute has a lot of stylistic flexibility: you can put it at the beginning of a sentence or at the end, or in the middle if you want, based on where it fits best into the overall message of the sentence.

For those of you who are fans of macrons, here is the Latin written with macrons:

Minervā auxiliante, manum etiam admovē.



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February 06, 2011

Ex labore dulcedo

Recording also available at iPadio using this link.
Today's saying is Ex labore dulcedo. In English: "From the work, something sweet."

I thought this would be a good follow-up to yesterday's proverb, Nihil sine labore, "Nothing without effort." Today's proverb gives a positive twist on the importance of hard work: there is a satisfaction that comes from making an effort, a sweet feeling of accomplishment. The saying is a popular family motto and in the blog post you can see a lovely coat of arms for the MacInnes family which features a bee and a thistle. The bee is a very hard worker and from the bee's hard work comes the sweetness that is honey! The bee is a wonderful metaphor here, because the bee's work is transformative, just as learning is transformative. It is not that the bee finds the honey; the bee MAKES the honey. Knowledge is something very similar, I think. You don't just pick up knowledge lying around. Instead, you gather the raw materials, just as the bee does, and from those raw materials you create the honey of wisdom. Ex labore dulcedo.

In terms of Latin grammar, this is another one of those sentences without a verb in Latin, but just because it is without a verb, it still has a subject and a predicate. In order to indicate that little pause between the subject and the predicate, some people punctuate the sentence with a comma: Ex labore, dulcedo. "From effort (comes) the sweetness." In addition, you will see this saying spelled both ways: Ex labore dulcedo and also E labore dulcedo. Both forms are correct. Before a vowel, you must always use the form ex, but before a consonant, you can find both e and ex. For plenty of examples of ex before a consonant, see the (long) entry for ex in the Lewis & Short Latin Dictionary online.

For those of you who are fans of macrons, here is the Latin written with macrons:

Ex labōre dulcēdo.



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Hodie vivendum, omissa praeteritorum cura

Recording also available at iPadio using this link.
Today's saying is Hodie vivendum, omissa praeteritorum cura. In English: "Live for today, setting aside all worry about the past."

This is awfully good advice for life in general: whatever you do, don't let the past drag you down. Or, as the English saying goes, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life." In terms of teaching and learning, this saying urges you to start each task fresh, without worrying about any frustrations or failures you might have experienced in the past, as a teacher or as a student. Admittedly, there are all kinds of aspects of school - like the awful GPA - which makes people obsess about the past, but obsessing about the past can sometimes be a real obstacle to forward progress. Of course, like so much good advice, this is easier said than done, but it is still very good advice nevertheless. You need to live right here, right now: hodie vivendum - and let bygones be bygones: omissa praeteritorum cura.

In terms of the Latin grammar, you might notice that the Latin praeterita is very much like the English word "bygones." The praeterita are the things that have literally "gone by," from the verb praeterire, "to go by, to pass away." In Latin grammar terminology, the praeteritum, or tempus praeteritum, refers to the past tense, which is where we get the grammatical term "preterite" in English.

For those of you who are fans of macrons, here is the Latin written with macrons:

Hodiē vīvendum, omissā praeteritōrum cūrā.



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