Volume III Archive

John W. Horton

Apologia Pro Latina

Without Latin a student might forget
where English came from (at least, that’s what
my Latin teacher said). Before you’re in
a fix, you can improve the situation
using prefixes. In- might be the best of
them. When Caesar said insomnia
he meant he couldn’t sleep. With Latin, you can speak
like a dictator when you’re missing forty winks.
In- means without and ex- is really in
extremis, and empire-loving Americans
can say far out—extrematis—
when speaking of the distant British Islands
(which gave us Shakespeare’s tongue, if not
his diction or poeticum). One caveat:
preposition-using students should be wary,
or else, they might end up ex vulnere
mori, like Caesar after March fifteen,
in omne tempus—forever—Amen.