Nice people thread part 7 - a thread in its prime

lostinrates

GDB2222 wrote: »

Geese! I thought you had geese?

I have two geese, yes, I do them too, they don't need much. A walk down to the cake, a walk back. Getting them back can be hard.

No hedgehogs this year. No feral cats in the house.

chewmylegoff

Nikkster wrote: »

The Latin book - was it called Ecce Romana (or something like that) - we learnt Latin for 2 years at secondary school using those books!

There were girls called Flavia and Aurelia (?) and boys called Marcus and something else (Cornelius?)... I think

Edit: here is a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecce_Romani

And the children were Marcus and Cornelia, who had a friend called Sextus (we were very grown up and NEVER sniggered at that name. Ever). The mum and dad (should that be mater and pater?) were Aurelia and Gaius.

I remember something about sextus climbing trees a lot. I am very bad at languages and Latin was my worst, with the possible exception of Ancient Greek. I gave up on that when I discovered that once you had transposed the word from the Greek alphabet into the Roman one you then had to translate it again. I was under the impression that all I needed to do was change the letters and an English word would pop out!

Doozergirl

michaels wrote: »

Brutus was the slave and Aurelius was always at the forum?

DG where have you been so long?

I'm not entirely sure. I think I fell out of my hamster wheel last Thursday and have just staggered in here smelling slightly of public transport and hoping no one notices.

It's nice to be back, anyway

Doozergirl

chewmylegoff wrote: »

I remember something about sextus climbing trees a lot. I am very bad at languages and Latin was my worst, with the possible exception of Ancient Greek. I gave up on that when I discovered that once you had transposed the word from the Greek alphabet into the Roman one you then had to translate it again. I was under the impression that all I needed to do was change the letters and an English word would pop out!

My best friend and I would write in the ancient greek letters as code to each other. We thought we were so cool Dikaeopolis Athenaios estin.

zagubov

chewmylegoff wrote: »

I remember something about sextus climbing trees a lot. I am very bad at languages and Latin was my worst, with the possible exception of Ancient Greek. I gave up on that when I discovered that once you had transposed the word from the Greek alphabet into the Roman one you then had to translate it again. I was under the impression that all I needed to do was change the letters and an English word would pop out!

I had a much duller book called the approach to Latin which didn't have anything as interesting as a family who did things. That sounds far too trendy! The rule in post-16 subjects in Scotland is you had to do English and Maths and then mix languages and sciences.

We did prayers and mass in Latin but that changed, for the better. There's nothing like the De Profundis (Out of the depths...) prayer for making you stop and pause and think.. maybe there's a hope.

One great use for Latin is for helping to learn Romance languages.

I did read about the artificial language Glosa (which had the slogan:the language you didn't know you knew) based on Latin, they say you can learn the gist of it in half a day.

It declines a lot like Latin. Fe canta means she sings, fe fucanta is she will sing and fe pacanta is she sang. Apparently the EU and cross-channel agenices used it to help monolingual people transfer basic information.

zagubov

Any Douglas Adams fans here would appreciate Latin as it's an incredibly brief clipped language like the one where the Hitchhikers Guide hero Ford Prefect was nicknamed "Ix," which translates as "boy who is not able satisfactorily to explain what a Hrung is, nor why it should choose to collapse on Betelgeuse Seven".

LydiaJ

I was going to make pancakes this evening but part way through the afternoon I got a text inviting us to have pancakes with friends, so had a lovely evening eating their pancakes instead.

Nikkster wrote: »

Shhhh... don't tell anyone, but its probably because I went for my first look at a house this evening!

I'm not properly looking yet, but saw this one in the paper last night and its the first one I really liked the look of so thought 'why not?'.

Apparently there are 2 offers of the asking price (at both agents its advertised with). I definitely won't be competing with them (assuming they are not imaginary) as I am guessing the place need re-wiring, and definitely needs new carpets before moving in.

Do any of you lovely people have property bee (or similar?) - I was told that the house was SSTC, but the deal fell through a couple of weeks ago. I got two very limp handshakes from the agent (and I am far from Queen of Handshakes) and I'm trying to work out just how much flannel I was being fed! :rotfl:

If any links are being PM'd, I'd love to be in on it. I agree about not posting links to actual houses, even at the other place. What I did when I was hunting was to post lots of descriptive but non-identifying stuff at the other place - referring to "the house at the top of the hill", "the house with the extension" etc, and then saying which ones I'd viewed and what I thought of them.

lostinrates wrote: »

We had the Cambridge Latin books, I can say the names but I don't think I can write them.. They lived in pompeii.

The son was Quintus and there was a slave called Clemens.

After the eruption of Vesuvius, Quintus went to live in Britannia with some kind of relative or friend of the family or something, whose name I forget. There were a whole new set of characters there, including twin slave boys called Loquax and Antiloquax.

We didn't have text book as such for O level - we just had the set books, which were Aeneid book VI (the underworld), a selection of Pliny's letters, and a selection of poems by Ovid, Horace, Martial and Catullus. I liked the Martial epigrams best.

I did ancient Greek too. Set books for O level were Odyssey book IX (the Cyclops) and the first 12 chapters of Plato's Apology of Socrates. I thought the Odyssey was more fun than Socrates, who seemed very repetitive to me.

Spirit_2

LydiaJ wrote: »

We didn't have text book as such for O level - we just had the set books, which were Aeneid book VI (the underworld), a selection of Pliny's letters, and a selection of poems by Ovid, Horace, Martial and Catullus. I liked the Martial epigrams best.

I did ancient Greek too. Set books for O level were Odyssey book IX (the Cyclops) and the first 12 chapters of Plato's Apology of Socrates. I thought the Odyssey was more fun than Socrates, who seemed very repetitive to me.

In Latin I also had a reference/history called The Agricola and Germanica of Tacitus. The diary of Roman with accounts of his experiences I think.

My friend has learnt Ancient Greek over the last few years so she can read Gospels/scripture in the original untranslated form. Saying you read Plato in Ancient Greek and can comment on its merits relative to Socrates has impressed me.

The closest I get is that my brother had a cat called Socrates and that Socrates is the name of the partner of someone I know.

Wheezy_2

Doozergirl wrote: »

What sticks in my head is Caecillius who liked baths and his wife, began with M, who liked shopping.

that must have been misskoolius.

michaels wrote: »

ETA: Looks like NP may be over-represented in the learned at least a couple of words of Latin stakes. I shudder to think what PN thinks of that...

Pasturus Novus would say she's never been to a country where they speak Latin.

Generali

A random Google suggests I am dux, at least in later times.

I did 35 minutes of Latin, long enough to know I had no interest whatsoever. I learned a single phrase: Caecelius est in cubiculae (sp???) which means Caecelius is in the garden. If it doesn't then it bloody well should.

I've got a good mate from the UK coming over at the end of the week. He's here on business (topping up reinsurance for Queensland insurers that have run out is my guess) but stays the weekend to hang out so I'll have a couple of nights out on his expenses. I've lined up Sunday lunch:

http://www.cafesydney.com/

It's a lovely spot, right by the harbour. It's on top of the old customs house in Sydney which dates back to convict days. Interestingly the customs house is decorated inside with swastikas (fylfots) which were a symbol of prosperity before being appropriated by the Nazis. It's slightly alarming at first:



They've also got a model of Sydney's CBD under a perspex floor you can walk on which is also a little alarming:



In other Aussie news, the politicians have finally agreed on something across parties. We should change our constitution to acknowledge the fact that Australia existed before white people arrived. I expect that this will not erase the national stain that is the idea of Terra Nullis but it's a start and a sight less complicated too.