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old hand
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old hand
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Or maybe decimate defines ten evils (deci+malus) And, since shopping malls make me sick, I tend to think of them as ten times worse than regular stores.
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stranger
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stranger
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The letter C in the Latin alphabet is always hard. Thus, caesar was pronounced Kai-sar, from which the German monarch got his name--kaiser. Cicero was pronounced kick-er-row.
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old hand
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old hand
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While one doesn't hear the hard "C," the Russian "Czar" has the same derivation as the German "Kaiser," methinks.
Regarding the ablative case post: It's been thirty five years since I studied Latin, but I seem to recall that the Ablative was the analog of the English object of a preposition. Is that not so?
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veteran
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veteran
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I thought "decimate" was someone who'd been married ten times.
Well Geoff, they'd definitely be more than a tenth destroyed.
Bicynical Fish
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stranger
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stranger
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There is the highest per centage of Latin based words in the worlds of government, military, and church. There is the highest per centage of Anglo-Saxon words in things found around the house: knife, wife, spoon, hearth.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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In reply to:
There is the highest per centage of Latin based words in the worlds of government, military, and church. There is the highest per centage of Anglo-Saxon words in things found around the house: knife, wife, spoon, hearth.
Ah, but what about the snobbish class distinctions for concepts that have words from both roots? Mansion vs. house, liberty vs. freedom, fraternity vs. brotherhood, usw. Damn those élitist Normans!
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old hand
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old hand
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I note that one's own anatomy and its functions have both Latin and Anglo-Saxon names, the former being "proper," the latter "vulgar." Yet, it seems to me, we tend to use the AS words for bodily functions when said function's particularly satisfying, or when it's intended pejoritively, and the Latin correlate when speaking neutrally. The American writer Diane Ackerman makes this point quite well in her book, "A Natural History of Love."
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veteran
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veteran
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both Latin and Anglo-Saxon names, the former being "proper" the latter "vulgar"
You're quite right, Geoff, also about Latin being somehow more dry and clinical.
I was wondering if any Latin swear-words, oaths or slang have been incorporated in English; I think not.
And if so (as if we needed proof) Latin really is a dead language.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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FishonaBike said And if so (as if we needed proof) Latin really is a dead language.
It's been twenty years since I "studied" Latin. "Study" would be overstating the case, and my fourth-form Latin teacher would agree with me. However, although I now stumble over anything more complicated than "amavi, amavisti, amavit", I do remember:
"Latin is a language
As dead as dead can be
It killed the ancient Romans
And now it's killing me!"
It appears, FishonaBike, that you're quite correct! The doggerel never lies ...
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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The letter C in the Latin alphabet is always hard. Thus, caesar was pronounced Kai-sar, from which the German
monarch got his name--kaiser. Cicero was pronounced kick-er-row. How do you know for sure? Or is it hearsay? 
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