We came across this term at work and don't quite grasp it. The roots would imply "to see below" or something like that, but that doesn't make much sense. Any thoughts?

I may have figured this one out. We also came across vide supra, and it seems to be simply an instruction to look below or above in a text. Why you'd use this instead of "see below" is beyond me though.


We found this funny link with lots of Latin phrases:

http://www.biopsych.net/latin_phrases_for_all_occasions.htm

There's also "vide verso" (see the other side [of the page]). Guess it's just old conventions.

So how would you say this in Latin:

Look up, look down, look all around...your pants are falling down!

"There's also "vide verso" (see the other side [of the page]). Guess it's just old conventions."

Yep. Librarianship uses that kind of terminology all the time. In a cataloging record, if there's something of note on the back of the title page, its location is referred to as "verso t.p.". If there is no place of publication or publisher listed, we put "s.l." (sine loco) and "s.n." (sine nomine), respectively, in those fields of the database record. Library work is a great opportunity to be high-tech and stodgy at the same time.

infra and supra are still used extensively in legal briefs, decisions, etc., where they serve as a sort of footnote to refer the reader elsewhere in the text. "The Jones decision, infra, has been interpreted..."

Years ago I worked for the General Accounting Office as an adjudicator of claims; during much of the time I reviewed the work of others, including several people my age who were in law school at night and were, to put it frankly, somewhat full of themselves. I was constantly removing things like this from their letters to claimants, most of whom had an approximate high school education.

One guy insisted on using viz., which means more or less, "to wit", as well as infra and supra. I finally had to get in his face about it, saying some nasty things about law students and him in particular. That discussion was later referred to as the "infra dig."

Well, I think it's all infra dig. I do!

What's wrong with viz.? It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure I knew what it meant when I was in secondary education. And I wasn't reading legal texts at that age, either.

Bingley

re:What's wrong with viz.? It's been a while, but I'm pretty sure I knew what it meant when I was in secondary education. And I wasn't reading legal texts at that age, either.

yeah, but. we are self selected group here..

i got in trouble use N.B. on a document at work.. my manager with his master's degree (albeit a MS) didn't know what it meant, and thought it 'show off'. i learned N.B. in elemenatary school.

(but to be honest, i didn't now vide infra- i might have been able to guess it, or i would have looked it up. most dictionaries have common latin words/phrases in the appendix.)