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Sep 21, 2001
This week's theme
Latin terms used in English

This week's words
quid pro quo
rara avis
sine die
annus mirabilis
sub rosa

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AWADmail 49

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Verbs
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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

sub rosa

(sub RO-zuh) Pronunciation

adverb: Secretly, privately, or confidentially.

[From Latin sub (under) rosa (rose). Earliest documented use: 1654. The English term "under the rose" is also used to refer to something in secret.]

NOTES: In Roman mythology, Venus's son Cupid gave a rose to Harpocrates, the god of silence, to ensure his silence about Venus's many indiscretions. Thus the flower became a symbol of secrecy. Ceilings of banquet halls were decorated with roses to indicate that what was said sub vino (under the influence of wine) was also sub rosa.

"The ugly tone of the sub rosa attacks was in marked contrast to the public campaigns of the top candidate."
James Rainey and Massie Ritsch; Mayoral Race Darkened by Negative Ads in Final Days; The Los Angeles Times, Apr 9, 2001.

X-Bonus

It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: "And this, too, shall pass away." How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction! -Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. President (1809-1865)

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