To Bob Youngblatt Salve, Frater! >utor, fruor, fungior and vescor I laughed out loud when I read that. I had been tempted, ere this, to suggest to you that you and I might have this communal bond (among other interests) like a fraternity password, used (a la "shibboleth", Shoshanna) to separate the brethren from the gentiles. We did NOT have the same Latin teacher. ( I calculate I am three years older than you and from a different part of the country)Perhaps we had the same texts. I trouble the AWAD group w/ this mindless trivia in order to raise another trivial Q to you Latin scholars out there. Were you also required to remember that, " Utor, fruor, fungior,potior and vescor (and were the verbs in this same order?) take the ablative instead of the accusative?". It really seems a rather obscure rule, of not much practical use. I took six years of Latin, enjoyed it at the time and it has proved quite useful and enjoyable over the years. Vocabulary, grammar, syntax, and much more have atrophied with age, but I could not forget,by strongest stroke of the "Delete" key, that " utor, etc. etc." Could there have been a conspiracy among Latin teachers to impose this recondite wisdom on submissive students? Were we all required to memorize the same passages or were teachers permitted,ad libitum, to choose their own favorites. The De Bellico Gallica bit was obligatory, of course, but what about, "Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientiam nostram" down through, and a bit past, "O tempora! O mores!" Or "Arma virumque cano ... Troiae qui primus ab oris, etc" or "O fons Bandusiae, splendidior vitro" "Carthago delenda est! etc, etc(BTW, I gave the Spelschlocker, poor dear, the night off. Didn't want her to blow a thingummy with all these funny words). Shall we, band of brothers (sisters,too) go to our separate graves with these common bits of arcane knowledge without knowing that other friends out there somewhere have been given these self-same miraculous keys to human understanding and the secrets of the universe? Shall we compare notes? The test papers have already been graded; ergo, Honor Code does not apply. I sense the o'erwhelming smell of an era that is (alas, say I ) quite gone forever.
Please note that the foregoing "draft" quotes are from memory. Scribbler is too lazy and tired to check their accuracy on paper and not practiced enough to go the on-line route. Have fun correcting me. A final word. I daresay this proposal is not YART and therefore suggest a new acro-breviation that may be applicable : TABNGAD i.e. "THANKS ANYWAY, BUT NOBODY GIVES A DAMN."
Semper idem, ....... Scribbler
