The 'Prehistoric Barbie' letter

This spoof letter is taken from Archaeology on the web, by Steve Platt.

The 'Prehistoric Barbie' letter. Widely distributed on the internet, it is usually accompanied by a note explaining that it is a genuine letter sent by the Curator of Antiquities at the Smithsonian Institute to a man in Newport, Rhode Island. This man is said to dig things up in his backyard and send the junk he finds to the Smithsonian, labelling it all with scientific names and insisting that he has made great archaeological discoveries.

THIS IS AN ACTUAL LETTER FROM THE ARCHIVES OF THE SMITHSONIAN.
Paleoanthropology Division
Smithsonian Institute
207 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20078

Dear Sir:

Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled "211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post. Hominid skull." We have given this specimen a careful and detailed examination, and regret to inform you that we disagree with your theory that it represents "conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two million years ago." Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie doll, of the variety one of our staff, who has small children, believes to be the "Malibu Barbie".

It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of us who are familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe to come to contradiction with your findings. However, we do feel that there are a number of physical attributes of the specimen which might have tipped you off to its modern origin:

1. The material is molded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are typically fossilized bone.

2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified proto-hominids.

3. The dentition pattern evident on the "skull" is more consistent with the common domesticated dog than it is with the "ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams" you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time. This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypotheses you have submitted in your history with this institution, but the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against it. Without going into too much detail, let us say that:

A. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has chewed on.

B. Clams don't have teeth.

It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request to have the specimen carbon dated. This is partially due to the heavy load our lab must bear in its normal operation, and partly due to carbon dating's notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic record. To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and carbon dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results. Sadly, we must also deny your request that we approach the National Science Foundation's Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning your specimen the scientific name "Australopithecus spiff-arino." Speaking personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species name you selected was hyphenated, and didn't really sound like it might be Latin.

However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this fascinating specimen to the museum. While it is undoubtedly not a hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the great body of work you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly. You should know that our Director has reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display of the specimens you have previously submitted to the Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have discovered in your back yard.

We eagerly anticipate your trip to our nation's capital that you proposed in your last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director to pay for it. We are particularly interested in hearing you expand on your theories surrounding the "trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous ions in a structural matrix" that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex femur you recently discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm Sears Craftsman automotive crescent wrench.

Yours in Science,

Harvey Rowe
Curator, Antiquities

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Zombie Researcher Asks Tough Questions About Resurrection of Christ

This is taken from The Spoof.


Zombie Researcher Asks Tough Questions About Resurrection of Christ
Written by La Pluma

Gaining a better understanding of the undead
Snakemouth, Louisiana Drawing national attention for his audacious comments concerning the Christian demi-god, Jesus Christ, Cajun spiritualist and specialist in all matters of the undead, Dr. Jethro Red Beaujolais, is asking Americans tough questions about the definition of Resurrection. Currently on the receiving end of national evangelistic ire, the swamp residing semi-Seminole Indian Frenchman has recently made numerous claims connecting the Resurrection of Jesus and the re-animation of black magic zombies, the brain craving creatures commonly popularized in present day media. While most people believe that Jesus was no brain-muncher, in the backwaters of the Louisiana bayous where the primordial religion Santeria reigns, many marsh dwelling Louisiana natives think the Christian Prophet may have simply fallen victim to an early Roman Voodoo spell or attack by the undead.

Frustrated by resistance from the scientific community on his beliefs that Voodoo rituals trace back to ancient Egypt and Rome, Red whined to puddle jumping journalists who had journeyed by canoe to hear his revelations, Agnostic Zombists were as common as Jewish Zealots and thick as Egyptian black flies during that time in Rome. Slaves and zombies were both cheap construction labor for the Roman state the aggravated archeologist added on. Presenting a number of ancient chicken bones, face painting materials and small antique purses of spell-casting powders as evidence to persuade press members of his dispute, Beaujolias told the correspondents that the items had been freshly unburied during excavations in modern day Rome, and served as proof of his theory. We think that Jesus might have been under the influence of some form of Sleeping Death drug or spell, the dark-skinned digger divulged raising one of the ragged purses of residue, Or maybe the wounds on Christs scalp, the ones that we have always attributed to the Crown of Thorns, may simply have come from a virus-carrying Italian zombie during a feeding attack, the doctor said indecisively.

While the necessary evidence to prove his case remains unrevealed, the rural researcher remains convinced that time and future findings will unveil the truth about Voodoo in the valley of the worlds most powerful empire. Im hopeful of finding another gospel or text from the period, Red remarked as he returned to the bow of his own large fan-powered swamp vessel. If we could find out more about Jesus behavior after the Resurrection, we could separate religious rumor from historic fact from manufactured myth, mindfully mentioned the bog-based theologian as he tugged on the draw string of the boat motor. As it stands now, we just dont know if Jesus was the victim of a witchs spell, a zombie attack, or if God himself returned Jesus back from the dead, a somewhat disappointed Jethro declared as he engaged the 4-foot vertical fan and slowly began sliding away.

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Excerpt: 'The Medici Conspiracy'

This excerpt and image were pulled from the NPR Website.



Giacomo Medici, photographed alongside the Euphronios krater in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. This photograph was found during the police raid on his warehouse in Geneva Freeport.


Excerpt: 'The Medici Conspiracy'


A 1995 raid on suspected tomb raider Giacomo Medici's warehouse in Geneva showed that Medici had been storing thousands of ancient vases, frescos, and other antiquities -- some in fragments or in various stages of restoration, some encrusted with dirt -- out of reach of the Italian government, in the Swiss Freeport. The Italian Carabinieri Art Squad gained access to the warehouse in 1997, as part of their investigation into Medici's ties to a global ring of looters, dealers, curators and collectors who worked to smuggle antiquities out of Italy. The documentation they found in Medici's warehouse proved to be as damning as the objects themselves.

Excerpt from Chapter 6

Although the antiquities themselves formed the most vivid and moving aspect of the seizure in Geneva, there was no less interest -- for Conforti and for Ferri -- in the documentation found in the back office behind Medici's showroom. While the three archaeologists concentrated on the objects, the paperwork became the responsibility of Maurizio Pellegrini, a photographic and document expert who had one foot in the public prosecutor's office and the other in the Villa Giulia

The size of the task facing Pellegrini may be gauged from the fact that there were in Medici's warehouse thirty albums of Polaroids, fifteen envelopes with photographs, and twelve envelopes with rolls of film. Besides the albums of photographs, Pellegrini calculated that some 100 full rolls of exposed film were seized, making a total of 3,600 images

The Polaroids fell into distinct groups. First, there were photographs of objects that were encrusted with dirt or calcarious deposits, in which the antiquities were often broken and incomplete. In other words, these objects were photographed near where they were excavated, in nearby fields or farmyards, in the houses of tombaroli, even on the back of a truck in one case. Next, however, there were many Polaroids showing the same objects restored, with the fragments joined together. In many cases, although the fragments had been joined together, the joins of the fragments were still visible, as were the gaps (the lacunae) where parts of the vases, say, were still missing. In due course, Pellegrini pieced together why the objects had been photographed in this state -- but not at first.

Next came a series of photographs -- Polaroids again -- in which once more the same objects were depicted, but this time they had been fully restored, with the joins covered over and repainted and polished to look almost as good as new. In some cases, as Pellegrini worked through the documents, he found that many of these restored objects were also depicted in auction house catalogs or in museum publications. Finally, there was a most interesting set of photographs in which Medici, and sometimes others, were pictured alongside antiquities that were on display in particular museums. Over the months, Pellegrini was able to sift the photographs in such a way that, for dozens of objects, he could reconstruct an entire sequence: from objects just out of the ground, dirty and broken, to being restored, to being on display in the world's museums. Medici, it turned out, was a stickler for keeping records, and it was the photographs that provided Pellegrini with the first inkling of the totality of Medici's involvement. Many of the photographs had writing on them that directed him elsewhere in the documentation, and no less important, many showed interiors that he began to recognize as the investigation proceeded. This also helped him to piece together the complex web of interrelationships that would in time be fully exposed.

Pellegrini had to start somewhere, so he chose what was far and away the most immediately shocking set of photographs. This was a folder with, on the outside, the words " Pitture romana Via Bo..

" Mi é preso un colpo! he breathed. " I was hit. He couldn't believe his eyes, and he called out to the professors.

Zevi, the first to reach him, took the camera. " He was speechless, says Pellegrini. " Scandalized.

What the images revealed was a dismaying sequence -- " a real horror, as he wrote in his report -- in which the first pictures showed three walls of what any expert could recognize as a Vesuvian/Pompeian villa. They could make this identification because the three walls were frescoed in what is called the Campanian II style. The decoration on Roman villas went through what art historians and archaeologists recognize as four styles, between the second century bc and ad 79. Campanian II comes second in this chronology, and decorations in that style differ from what came before and after in consisting of more panoramic landscapes, mythological scenes, and certain architectural features.

The photographs showed nine walls in all, but three were of particular interest. Two of them were in red, pale blue, and gray. These walls showed two female figures in the foreground with, below them, miniaturized masks and smaller figures. On the right wall was shown an architectural drawing of a two-story building, with a similar symmetric design opposite, on the left wall. In other words, in this first sequence of photographs, the room -- or one end of it -- is intact. " The frescoes are in an excellent state of conservation, both pictorially and structurally. However, besides the walls of the room, the photographs also showed a mass of earth mixed with lapillae covering the floor and filling the space to a depth of a few feet; lapillae also encrust the ceiling area. Lapillae are a telltale sign to any Italian archaeologist. They are small balls of volcanic ash, formed after the eruption of Vesuvius in ad 79, which buried so much of the surrounding countryside south of Naples. This was further confirmation, in addition to the subject matter and pictorial style of the frescoes, that this room had been part of a villa that was one of those overwhelmed by the eruption of the famous volcano, but not one known to the official archaeologists. The first sequence of photographs therefore confirmed that this had been a very important discovery, made in a clandestine " excavation by some tombaroli. It was the next set of photographs, however, that constituted the " horror.

This second set showed the image of the central wall -- the one with the two female figures and the figurines -- but laid out like a giant jigsaw. The images had been cut from the original wall, in a number of highly irregular pieces, each in size about as big as a laptop, and then put back together again on panels that were framed -- edged -- in wood. The fresco had been taken off the villa wall, detached from its right and left companions, and cut up into chunks. That it was the same image was quite clear to Pellegrini, even though there were gaps between the separate pieces: The two females were clearly visible and recognizable. In his report, Pellegrini commented that this operation, normally highly technical (when done by archaeologists), was here done crudely and in a hurry, without any regard for the integrity or sanctity of the images but simply so that the fresco could be quickly and more easily smuggled abroad

This, then, was the distressing starting point for Pellegrini. It revealed the scale of the traffic in illegally excavated antiquities, and the brutality shown by the tombaroli and those above them in respect to important and beautiful ancient objects, as well as the utter indifference to the archaeological importance of Italy's heritage, and it showed how inappropriate the word " excavation is when applied to these activities.

"From the book The Medici Conspiracy: The Illicit Journey of Looted Antiquities from Italys Tomb Raiders to the Worlds Greatest Museums by Peter Watson and Cecilia Todeschini. Copyright 2006. Reprinted with permission from PublicAffairs, a member of the Perseus Books Group. All rights reserved.

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Greek gods prepare for comeback

This weird article is taken from The Guardian.


Helena Smith in Athens
Friday May 5, 2006

It has taken almost 2,000 years, but those who worship the 12 gods of ancient Greece have finally triumphed. An Athens court has ordered that the adulation of Zeus, Hera, Hermes, Athena and co is to be unbanned, paving the way for a comeback of pagans on Mount Olympus.

The followers, who say they "defend the genuine traditions, religion and ethos" of the ancients by adhering to a pre-Christian polytheistic culture, are poised to take their battle to the temples of Greece.

"What we want, now, is for the government to fully recognise our religion," Vasillis Tsantilas told the Guardian. "We will petition the Greek parliament, and the EU if that fails, for access to worship in places like the Acropolis, for permission to have our own cemeteries and, where necessary, to re-bury the [ancient] bones of the dead.

About 98% of Greeks are Orthodox Christian, and all other religions except Judaism and Islam had been banned.

Yet the pagans say as many as 2,000 Greeks have signed up to their movement. Mr Tsantilas, 42, a computer scientist who came to paganism after toying with Buddhism, Taoism and Islam, said worshippers perceived the ancient gods as the "personification of the divine".

But Greece's powerful Orthodox Church takes a less charitable view, accusing the worshippers of idolatry and "poisonous New Age practices".

Father Eustathios Kollas, who presides over the community of Greek priests, said: "They are a handful of miserable resuscitators of a degenerate dead religion who wish to return to the monstrous dark delusions of the past."

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Who Is Buried in Virgil's Tomb?

Taken from the New York Times:

By JAMES SHAPIRO
Published: March 21, 1999

VIRGIL
His Life and Times.
By Peter Levi.
248 pp. New York:
St. Martin's Press. $27.95.

Virgil's epitaph, once thought to have been written by the poet himself, neatly sums up the story of his life, death and works:

Mantua me genuit, Calabri

rapuere, tenet nunc

Parthenope; cecini pascua rura duces.

''Mantua was my birthplace; I died in Calabria; and now I rest at Parthenope. I sang of pastures, farms and leaders.'' Virgil would be celebrated in his own day -- and for the next 2,000 years -- for the three remarkable works alluded to in this epitaph: his pastoral ''Eclogues''; his didactic poem on farming, the ''Georgics''; and most of all, his epic on the founding of Roman rule, the ''Aeneid.''

The epitaph, and most of what we know about Virgil, comes down to us through a fourth-century version of a lost second-century biography by Suetonius. It rapidly covers the circumstances of Virgil's early years, schooling and move to Rome; his health (weak stomach, throat and head); sexual preference (young men); and what he looked like (tall, dark and rustic). It also established how long it took Virgil to complete his three great poems, each about double the time of the previous one: the ''Eclogues'' (three years), the ''Georgics'' (seven) and the ''Aeneid'' (eleven, plus the three he had planned for revision). Finally, this early biography makes much of Virgil's close ties with his patron, Augustus, to whom Virgil personally recited the ''Georgics'' shortly after Augustus' forces defeated Antony and Cleopatra at Actium, and to whom he would later read completed books of the ''Aeneid'' as well. Suetonius is also the source of the story that Virgil wished to have the ''Aeneid'' burned at his death -- a request that Augustus overruled. There's not much else to go on: some additional scraps that turn up centuries later, a largely (if not entirely) spurious collection of his early writings; and the internal evidence from his poetry. To that we can add stray comments by contemporary writers (which are as trustworthy, one imagines, as the praise or gibes of fellow writers for Norman Mailer or V. S. Naipaul). All told, pretty slim material for a biography, made all the more difficult by the fact that ancient biographers had no compunctions about mixing truth and gossip; contemporaries must have been especially eager to know more about the reticent Virgil, so that the temptation to embellish his life story must have been unusually strong.

For most of Virgil's 52 years Italy was torn by civil strife, and it's not easy to separate his life and poetic output from these stormy times. He began the ''Eclogues'' right after Julius Caesar was assassinated and the blood bath in Rome began; the ''Aeneid'' was written after this long period of upheaval was resolved by the imposition of one-man rule -- and that man was Augustus.

If, following writers from Edward Gibbon to Ronald Syme, you see Augustus as tyrannical and manipulative, you are left with two choices: the first, in Robert Graves's blunt terms, is to conclude that Virgil ''brought . . . discredit'' on his ''sacred calling'' for his ''subservience'' to Augustus. The second is to claim in Virgil's defense that his work subtly but unmistakably subverts imperialism. The passage usually invoked in support of this view is the final scene of his final poem, where Aeneas furiously slays Turnus after Turnus admits defeat and begs for his life. This is the same Aeneas who had earlier taken prisoners of war to sacrifice upon the pyre of a fallen friend. Virgil, so this reading goes, ends his epic by showing the dehumanizing side of empire; its personal and social cost was simply too high. It follows that Virgil wanted to burn the ''Aeneid'' because he no longer believed in the political order it espoused.

On the other hand, if you accept (and therefore believe that Virgil accepted) Augustus as a leader who sought to restore order to a society riven by civil war, viewing Virgil as critical of empire is a fantasy of modern liberals; there's no doubt that Virgil really believed in Roman ''imperium sine fine'' -- empire without end. Earlier biographies of Virgil in this century -- including those by Andre Bellessort and his student Robert Brasillach -- took this position to a disturbing extreme, seeing Virgil's advocacy of one-man rule as an endorsement of fascism (Brasillach was later executed as a Nazi collaborator). According to this school, Virgil's desire to burn his poem was an esthetic choice, the act of a perfectionist unwilling to let an unpolished work survive him.

That the politics of Virgil's poetry matter, and matter dearly to poets and critics, has been made clear by writers throughout our own bloody century. Wilfred Owen, for example, wrote ''Arms and the Boy'' in 1918 -- his title echoing the opening line of the ''Aeneid'' (''I sing of arms and the man''), which tens of thousands of soldiers (who like Owen would die in defense of empire) had memorized as schoolboys. The reality of ''empire without end'' was something else altogether: ''Let the boy try along this bayonet-blade / How cold steel is, and keen with hunger of blood; . . . Or give him cartridges of fine zinc teeth, / Sharp with the sharpness of grief and death.''

The tension between these opposing views of Virgil came to a climax in an era of cold war and Vietnam (and continues to play itself out in critical studies and classroom debate). In 1962 Robert Frost invoked the Augustan ideal of yoking poetry and rule in his poem celebrating John F. Kennedy's inauguration, an event that ''makes the prophet in us all presage / the glory of a next Augustan age . . . A golden age of poetry and power.'' That very year Robert Graves would independently repudiate the ''Virgil Cult'': ''Whenever a golden age of stable government, full churches and expanding wealth dawns among the Western nations, Virgil always returns to supreme favor.'' Graves (who like Owen had fought in World War I) had nothing but contempt for poets like T. S. Eliot who advocated Virgil (as a model to Christendom no less!) from the safety of the study: ''A Roman's task is to rule the world, to crush rival powers and to impose a magnanimous peace upon the survivors. This heady doctrine, to which as a young Romano-British imperialist I too was asked to subscribe . . . Eliot still cherishes.''

All this is a long way about introducing Peter Levi's account of ''Virgil: His Life and Times'' -- which, despite the promise of the title, is neither biography nor social history. Readers may also be disappointed by Levi's evasiveness on issues that continue to produce such passionate debate -- all the more bewildering, since he asserts that ''we will have to make up our minds where Virgil stands today.'' The opening passage of his book is typical in its refuge in platitudes and non sequiturs: ''When I was a schoolboy Virgil was the Latin poet, in a sense that even children would question today. He was the embodiment of that vast, ballooning idea of Roman civilization and its great power and impressive material culture. For better or worse, I have now lost that simple vision. But Virgil's stature as a poet has not in the least diminished for me. His poetry rises high above Rome and its Caesars, and his victory lies in the supreme merit of his work.''

Levi's formidable gifts as a close reader of poetry -- on display in his illuminating collection, ''The Art of Poetry'' (1991) -- are, sadly, rarely on view here. This falling-off can best be explained by his unresolved ambivalence about the kind of book he wanted to write, by his frustration with addressing ''readers without Latin'' (who are nonetheless expected to be familiar with the names and works of obscure poets and scholars), and most of all by the near impossibility of conveying Virgil's ''supreme merit'' through paraphrase and translation. Far too much of this book consists of intelligent though often tedious and shapeless passage-by-passage commentary. It's about as satisfying as having a friend relate in great detail the plot of a Dickens novel; it's better to read it yourself. If there is an argument in this book, it's that Virgil peaked with his ''Georgics.'' The ''Aeneid'' is a falling off, due to the pressure placed on Virgil by Augustus and Virgil's failure to measure up to his Homeric models. As Levi puts it far more succinctly in ''The Art of Poetry'': ''The 'Aeneid' . . . remains the shadow of a great poem.''

In the end, Levi's contribution to Virgilian biography rests upon a silent rearranging of the trajectory of the career described in the poet's epitaph: Virgil should be remembered for having sung of ''the crown, the shepherd's crook, the spade'' -- in that order.

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Classics Cartoons

Here are some Classics cartoons taken from http://www.uark.edu/campus-resources/dlevine/CLSTJokes.html

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Famous Classics Majors

Taken from:http://www.promotelatin.org/index.html (List compiled by the department at the University of Georgia)

"I am appalled, even horrified, that you have adopted Classics as a Major. As a matter of fact, I almost puked on the way home today. . . . I suppose everybody has to be a snob of some sort, and I suppose you will feel that you are distinguishing yourself from the herd by becoming a Classical snob. ... I think you are rapidly becoming a jackass, and the sooner you get out of that filthy atmosphere, the better it will suit me."
Ed Turner to his son Ted Turner, c. 1958, when the latter was a student at Brown University.

List of Famous Classics Majors
Jerry Brown, Mayor of Oakland (former Governor of CA)
William Cohen, Secretary of Defense during Clinton administration
Lynn Sherr, correspondent, ABC-TV's "20-20"
James Baker, former Secretary of State
Ted Turner, founder of CNN, Turner Broadcasting, etc.
Robert Graves, poet
Willa Cather, teacher, journalist, critic, and author
Rita Mae Brown, animal enthusiast and author
W.E.B. DuBois, sociologist, co-founder of NAACP, and author
Toni Morrison, author and winner of Nobel Prize for Literature-1993
Gerda Lerner, pioneer in teaching women's history and author
Chuck Geschke, former CEO and co-founder of Adobe Systems
Sigmund Freud, pioneer in psychoanalysis and author
Jane Addams, social worker, founder of Hull House, winner of Nobel Peace Prize-1931
Betty Friedan, found of NOW and author
Nancy Vickers, president of Bryn Mawr College
Friedrich W. Nietzsche, philosopher and author
Teller of Penn and Teller, Magicians
And add at least one more:
J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter novels

5:59 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Handy Latin Phrases

Handy Latin Phrases

From:http://www.dribbleglass.com/Jokes/latin2.htm

Do you really enjoy Latin that much? Maybe it's not a dead language after all! Oh, who are we kidding, it might not be dead, but it's certainly on life support.
Quote1 (159 bytes)
Non calor sed umor est qui nobis incommodat.
(It's not the heat, it's the humidity.)
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Prehende uxorem meam, sis!
Take my wife, please!

Actus non facit reum nisi mens est rea.
I never intended to kill anybody.

Non calor sed umor est qui nobis incommodat.
It's not the heat, it's the humidity.

Mellita, domi adsum.
Honey, I'm home.

Fac ut nemo me vocet.
Hold my calls.

Di! Ecce hora! Uxor mea me necabit!
God, look at the time! My wife will kill me!

Antiquis temporibus, nati tibi similes in rupibus ventosissimis exponebantur ad necem.
In the good old days, children like you were left to perish on windswept crags.

Estne volumen in toga, an solum tibi libet me videre?
Is that a scroll in your toga, or are you just happy to see me?
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Estne volumen in toga, an solum tibi libet me videre?
(Is that a scroll in your toga, or are you just happy to see me?)
Quote2 (155 bytes)

Fac ut gaudeam.
Make my day.

Labra lege.
Read my lips.

Purgamentum init, exit purgamentum.
Garbage in, garbage out.

Credo nos in fluctu eodem esse.
I think we're on the same wavelength.

Subucula tua apparet.
Your slip is showing.

Absolvi meam animam.
I got that off my chest.

Ante victoriam ne canas triumphum.
Don't count your chickens before they're hatched.

Apudne te vel me?
Your place or mine?

Da mihi sis crustum Etruscum cum omnibus in eo.
I'll have a pizza with everything on it.

Obesa cantavit.
The fat lady has sung.

Lex clavatoris designati rescindenda est.
The designated hitter rule has got to go.

Te audire no possum. Musa sapientum fixa est in aure.
I can't hear you. I have a banana in my ear.

Non sum pisces.
I am not a fish.

Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
If Caesar were alive, you'd be chained to an oar.

Quomodo cogis comas tuas sic videri?
How do you get your hair to do that?
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Canis meus id comedit. (My dog ate it.)
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Canis meus id comedit.
My dog ate it.

Feles mala! Cur cista non uteris? Stramentum novum in ea posui.
Bad kitty! Why don't you use the cat box? I put new litter in it.

Romani quidem artem amatoriam invenerunt.
You know, the Romans invented the art of love.

Animadvertistine, ubicumque stes, fumum recta in faciem ferri?
Ever noticed how wherever you stand, the smoke goes right into your face?

Braccae illae virides cum subucula rosea et tunica Caledonia-quam elenganter concinnatur.
Those green pants go so well with that pink shirt and the plaid jacket.

Utinam logica falsa tuam philosophiam totam suffodiant.
May faulty logic undermine your entire philosophy.

Neutiquam erro.
I am not lost.

Hocine bibo aut in eum digitos insero?
Do I drink this or stick my fingers in it?

Vah! Denuone Latine loquebar? Me ineptum. Interdum modo elabitur.
Oh! Was I speaking Latin again? Silly me. Sometimes it just sort of slips out.

9:09 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

The Internet's Smallest Collection of Latin Jokes

From: http://people.ku.edu/~dadams/latin.htm

The Internet's Smallest Collection of Latin Jokes


The Latin professor was uncharacteristically late in returning home. His wife was starting to worry when he entered the house. His hair was disheveled, his clothes were torn, his glasses were broken, and his left eye was starting to swell up.

"What happened to you?"

"My dear, you won't believe it. On my way home from school I was set upon by a bunch of hoodla."
He was so upset that he went to a bar near his house for a drink to settle his nerves.

"What'll it be?" asked the bartender.

"A martinus," said the professor.

"Don't you mean martini?"

"If I wanted more than one I'd ask for more than one."



The Latin professor's class was conjugating verbs and it got to be Julius's turn. He had not been paying close attention. He turned to the student beside him and asked, "What's the verb?"

She replied, "Damn if I know."

So our hero sat up and conjugated:

Damifino, damifinas, damifinat.

Damifinamus, damifinatis, damifinant.



Most of the following two-way translations are samples from a book by Henry Beard entitled "Latin for Even More Occasions" (Lingua Latina Multa Pluribus Occasionibus):

Valeo--Vales.
I'm OK--You're OK.

Rosa rosa rosa est est.
A rose is a rose is a rose.

Ventis secundis, tene cursum.
Go with the flow.

In curro meo ab Officina Baiuoaria Mechanica fabricato habeo machinam quae litteras per aethera transmittit.
I have a fax machine in my BMW.

Quid agis, caput assulae?
How's hacking, chiphead?

Quid gurgustium!
What a dump!

Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?
How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?

Malum Magnum
The Big Apple

Oppidum Bracteatum
Tinsel Town

Heia, comes, num aliquid agitur?
Hey, you got a problem, pal?

Quando prandimus?
What time is lunch?

Tam diu minime visu!
Long time no see!

Vale, lacerte!
See you later, alligator!

Hocine tibi habeas iocum?
Is this your idea of a joke?

Proxima sed non corona.
Close but no cigar.

Semper ubi sub ubi!
always wear underwear



Courtesy of a high school Latin class
(http://www.execpc.com/~nexus/latin.html)

American Pie (Don McLean)
Abhinc multos, multos annos
Memini adhuc
Quo modo illa musica faciebat me ridere
Et scivi si haberem meam casum
Possem facere illos hominos saltare
Et forsitan essent laeti brevi tempore
Sed Februarius fecit me horrere
Cum omne acta diurna trado
Mali nuntii in ianua
Non poteram facere unum plus passum
Non possum meminisci si lacrimavi
Cum legerem de nupta sine marita
Aliquid tetigit me intime
Illo die
Cum musica mortua esset.

Inceperunt cantare:
Vale, vale Domina America crusta
Vectus sum me carrum ad tumultus in flumine
sed tumultus in flumine erat aridus
Et boni antiqui pueri bibebant vinum et secale
Cantantes hoc futurum esse diem in quo ego moriae
diem in quo ego moriar.

Friday I'm in Love (The Cure)
Non curo si dies Lunae caerulus est
Dies Martis gratus est,
Et dies Mercurii quoque
Dies Iovis, non curo de te,
Sed die Veneris, adamo.

Dies Lunae, potes diffringere.
Dies Martis Mercuriique cordem meum frangunt,
Dies Iovis non incipit,
Sed die Veneris adamo.

Dies Saturni expectat,
Dies Solus semper nimis serius venit.

Non curo si Dies Lunae niger est.
Dies Martis Mercuriique, infarctio cordis,
Dies Iovis numquam retrospectat,
Sed die Veneris adamo.


If you know any more Latin jokes (especially if they don't require a lot of Latin knowledge on the reader's part), please e-mail me at dadams@falcon.cc.ukans.edu. I will gladly cite your contribution on this page.

9:07 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

"Baby Got Back" in Latin

De clunibus magnis amandis oratio
Mixaloti equitis

mehercle!
(By Hercules!)
Rebecca, ecce! tantae clunes isti sunt!
(Rebecca, behold! Such large buttocks she has!)

amica esse videtur istorum hominum rhythmicorum.
(She appears to be a girlfriend of one of those rhythmic-oration people.)
sed, ut scis,
(But, as you know)
quis homines huiusmodi intellegere potest?
(Who can understand persons of this sort?)
colloquuntur equidem cum ista eo tantum, quod scortum perfectum esse videtur.
(Verily, they converse with her for this reason only, namely, that she appears to be a complete whore.)
clunes, aio, maiores esse!
(Her buttocks, I say, are rather large!)
nec possum credere quam rotondae sint.
(Nor am I able to believe how round they are.)
en! quam exstant! nonne piget te earum?
(Lo! How they stand forth! Do they not disgust you?)
ecce mulier Aethiops!
(Behold the black woman!)

magnae clunes mihi placent, nec possum de hac re mentiri.
(Large buttocks are pleasing to me, nor am I able to lie concerning this matter.)
quis enim, consortes mei, non fateatur,
(For who, colleagues, would not admit,)
cum puella incedit minore medio corpore
(Whenever a girl comes by with a rather small middle part of the body)
sub quo manifestus globus, inflammare animos
(Beneath which is an obvious spherical mass, that it inflames the spirits)
virtute praestare ut velitis, notantes bracas eius
(So that you want to be conspicuous for manly virtue, noticing her breeches)
clunibus profunde fartas(*1) esse
(Have been deeply stuffed with buttock?)
a! captus sum, nec desinere intueri possum.
(Alas! I am captured, nor am I able to desist from gazing.)
o dominola mea, volo tecum congredi
(My dear lady, I want to come together with you)
pingereque picturam tui.
(And make a picture of you.)
familiares mei me monebant
(My companions were trying to warn me)
sed clunes istae libidinem in me concitant.
(But those buttocks of yours arouse lust in me.)
o! cutis rugosa glabraque! (*2)
(O skin wrinkled and smooth!)
dixistine te in meum vehiculum intrare velle?
(Did you say you wish to enter my vehicle?)
in arbitrio tuo totus veni
(I am entirely at your disposal)
quia non es mediocris adsecula.
(Because you are not an average hanger-on.)
vidi illam saltantem.(*3)
(I have seen her dancing.)
obliviscere igitur blanditiarum! (*3a)
(Forget, therefore, about blandishments!)
tantus sudor! tantus umor!
(Such sweat! Such moisture!)
vehor quasi in curru quadrigarum! (*4)
(I am borne along as if by a four-horse chariot!)
taedet me in diurnis legendi
(I am tired of reading in the gazettes)
planas clunes gratiores iudicari.
(That flat buttocks are judged more pleasing.)
rogate quoslibet Aethiopes: responsum erit
(Ask any black men you wish: the answer will be)
se libentius expletiores (*5) anteponere.
(Rather that they prefer fuller ones.)
o consortes (quid est?) o consortes (quid est?)
(O colleagues [What is it?] O colleagues [What is it?])
habent amicae vestrae magnas clunes? (certe habent!)
(Do your girlfriends have large buttocks? [They certainly have!])
hortamini igitur ut eas quatiant (ut quatiant!)
(Encourage them therefore to shake them! [To shake them!])
ut quatiant! (ut quatiant!)
(To shake them! [To shake them!)
ut quatiant illas clunes sanas!
(To shake those healthy buttocks!)
domina mea exstat a tergo! (*6)
(My mistress stands out behind!)

[Etc.]

_______
(*1) Any apparent connection with flatulence, even in this context, is purely coincidental.
(*2) The original doesn't make much sense either. Is it a cellulite reference? -- ADDENDUM Nov. 14, 2003: The reading of the text here is a problem which has much exercised the scholarly community, with attempts to explain "rumpled smooth skin," or to suggest that it is a pun (a lame one, if you ask me) on Rumplestiltskin. The likeliest reading is "rub her smooth skin" (cutem glabram eius tere [or terere volo]). Now, there are ten pages of comments below, and a great many of them are devoted to this matter. Please familiarize yourself with the status quaestionis before making your own contribution. -- UPDATE 12/9/03: a reader tells us that Sir Mixalot's official site confirms the lyrics "rub all of that smooth skin." I am therefore willing to declare the matter solved, and wish to hear no more of it. Thank you.
(*3) Or saltare?
(*3a) I can find no obvious Latin expression that implies "romantic courtship." -- ADDENDUM 10/14/03: Amores has been suggested, but that can also be used for purely sexual liaisons, which is clearly the goal here, and so not to be thus dismissed.
(*4)All right, how would you say "got it goin' like a Turbo 'Vette"? And what exactly is "goin'" here? I have chosen to understand that the unnamed woman's extraordinary callipygy has inspired a primal response in the narrator, rather than that she "has got it goin' on," i.e., that she "is all that" -- although the later lines (not included here) concerning Fonda's Honda and the speaker's anaconda can, ultimately, be invoked in support of either interpretation. -- ADDENDUM 10/24/03: I have heard from several readers that the music video suggests that this line should rather be interpreted along the lines of "she shakes her posterior most vigorously."
(*5) Or uberiores? Although that's perhaps better reserved for a different fetish.
(*6) This line is not as succinct as the original, to be sure. -- ADDENDUM 10/24/03: I wish I'd said puella here, as domina suggests a power relationship different from the English original.

2:22 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment