Strategy: Conditions without Verbs

You probably remember studying conditional (or hypothetical) sentences in Latin and perhaps you memorized those labels such as "future less vivid" condition or "past contrary-to-fact," depending on what types of indicative or subjunctive verbs were used in the sentence. In this strategy tip, I want to highlight how you can actually leave out the verb in the "if" part of the condition (the "protasis" as it is called), so that you can express the idea of a hypothetical situation in just two simple words, without even having to use a verb.

First, let's review some of the conditional particles that you can use to express a hypothetical idea. Of course, you have si (if) and nisi (if not; unless), for straightword conditions. In addition, there is a whole series of concessive participles that are very useful that express the idea of "even it" or "even though" in English: etsi, tametsi, etiamsi, licet and quamvis.

So, you can take any one of those hypothetical participles and use them without a verb to express a hypothetical idea - all you need is a noun or adjective or prepositional phrase, something that will link the hypothetical idea to the main sentence.

Here's an example. When I saw this word list - equus - res - discipulus - iste - animal - I knew I wanted to say something about how the horse is a good pupil, while the donkey (who is often the opposite of the horse in the world of proverbs) is not a good pupil. Here's how I described the donkey: asinus nihil discit, etiamsi verberatus, "the donkey doesn't learn anything, even if (he is) beaten." Without having to worry about what kind of verb to use there, I was able to use an adjective (a participle, as it turns out, but any adjective will do) in order to express a hypothetical idea. If you want to see how the whole thing turned out, here it is.

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Do you have some good strategies for doing the Vocabulary Challenge in Latin? Share your ideas here! Here are some strategies that I've used in writing my responses.

Writing Strategy: Correlative Word Pairs

Latin abounds in correlative word pairs. Not only are these very useful in expressing ideas, they often are similar in sound, too, providing a nice quality of sound repetition, in addition to clarity of meaning.

So, if you see a word list, notice if any of the words in the list is part of a correlative word pair that you could use to organize your response.

For example, when I saw this list - refero - quantus - dignus - verus - cura - I knew that I wanted to use the correlative pair quantus-tantus in my response. You can see the results here, if you are curious.

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Do you have some good strategies for doing the Vocabulary Challenge in Latin? Share your ideas here! Here are some strategies that I've used in writing my responses.

Verbum Hodiernum: CRUX

The word for today is crux, meaning "cross." This is a feminine noun of the third declension, with a genitive form crucis. You can see the Latin word borrowed directly into English with the word "crux" (as in "the crux of the matter") which derives from the Latin phrase crux interpretum, meaning "a crossways of the interpreters," a passage in a text where interpreters disagree. The Latin root is also clear in words like "crucial," "crusade," "excrutiating," etc. The English word "cruise" even derives from Latin, via Dutch kruisen, meaning "to cross over, sail back and forth." We get "cross" from Old Irish cros that ultimately derives from Latin crux.

The original meaning of the word was a tree or some other wooden device used for the purposes of execution, impaling or hanging condemned prisoners. Then, by metaphorical extension, it came to refer to any kind of trouble or suffering that someone could endure.

The etymology of the word in Latin is not clear. Although this is certainly a productive root in Latin, generating many related words (crucifigo, excrucio, crucifer, cruciabundus, to name just a few), nobody is quite sure just where the word crux came from to begin with. Since the word refers to what was a distinctively Roman practice, it does not have a Greek language counterpart. In the Greek New Testament, the word for cross is σταυρός (which meant a stake or a pale, as would be used for impalement), which is etymologically unrelated to Latin crux.

Here are some examples of today's word in Latin sayings and proverbs; for more information, see the page at the Scala Sapientiae, which contains notes on some of the proverbs cited below, as well as additional proverbs:

I in malam crucem!

Abi hinc in malam crucem!

Destinatus cruci non submergitur.

Destinatus cruci non suffocatur aquis.

Ille crucem pretium sceleris tulit, hic diadema.

This word took on entirely new dimensions of meanings from its central role in the Christian religion, because of the crucifixion of Jesus. As a paradoxical symbol of salvation and goodness, the Christian meaning of the crux is very different from the traditional Roman meaning.

Ubi crux, ibi lux.

Per crucem ad lucem.

Via crucis, via lucis.

Quisque suas sustinet cruces.

Crux in pectore, in corde Satan.

Malus fugit lucem, ut diabolus crucem.

Christi crux est mea lux.

Vocabulary Challenge: equus et asinus

Here are the words for today's challenge:

equus (equi) - res (rei) - discipulus (discipuli) - iste, ista, istud (istius) - animal (animalis, n.)

When I saw the words here equus and discipulus, I thought about the many proverbs where the horse is used to represent the good student, the one who can learn quickly and easily, while the donkey is a recalcitrant student, unable or unwilling to learn. So, I made up something based on that idea, and added on a traditional proverb at the end:

Equus, animal nobile, in rebus omnibus discipulus aptus est, sed iste asinus nihil discit, etiamsi verberatus. Sicut dictum est: Parisios bipedum si quis transmittat asellum, si fuit hic asinus, non ibi fiet equus.

You can tell that the traditional proverb is medieval in origin, since Paris was a great seat of learning in the Middle Ages - the University of Paris was established in the 11th century! So, the proverb is poking fun at those fathers who sent their ignoramus sons, the tw0-legged donkeys of the proverb, off to Paris, foolishly hoping that they would come back home transformed into horses. Just change the name of the university town, and the same proverb could be used today, too!

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If you came up with something good for today's Vocabulary Challenge, share the results in a comment here at the blog! Meanwhile, here are my past answers to the Vocabulary Challenge each day. :-)

Writing Strategy: The Moral of the Story

There are basically three ways that the moral of an Aesop's fable can be expressed. You can have the moral stated at the beginning of the story; this is called a promythium, which is a Greek word meaning "before-the-story." You can also have a moral that comes after the story, which is an epimythium, "after- the-story."

In addition - and this is the kind of moral that I like the best - you can have the moral be pronounced by one of the characters in the story itself. There is not a traditional technical term for this kind of moral, but I like to call it an endomythium, "inside-the-story."

So, for example, when I read this list - hic - modus - gens - quam - reddo - for some reason I thought about the fable of the man who picked up a frozen snake, but when the snake warmed up it then bit the man who had saved it. I decided to use the Latin words to express the moral of the story, putting words in the man's mouth as he died from the snake's venom. You can read the results here if you are curious.

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Do you have some good strategies for doing the Vocabulary Challenge in Latin? Share your ideas here! Here are some strategies that I've used in writing my responses.

Writing Strategy: Parallel Structure

The use of parallel structures is very common in Latin. Instead of saying something once, you say it twice - perhaps with a subtle variation between the two different instances.

If you are using opposites, for example, you can put those opposites into parallel expressions. In this list - crux - bellum - meus - qui - quoque - I knew right away that I wanted to build my sentence based on the opposition between bellum and pax. So, I ended up with two parallel phrases: in bello and in pace. I like the interplay between having opposite words used in parallel constructions! If you are curious, you can see how the rest of it turned out here.

You can also create more elaborate kinds of parallel constructions. For example, in this list - primus - sanctus - arripere - aetas - ex - I recognized right away that while primus and sanctus are not synonyms, they do have something in common that I could use to build a parallelism - they are both "good" attributes. So, I used that parallelism to create my sentence, which features a number of parallels and repetitions. It is will be more clear if I write it out this way:

Omnia fert aetas,
e manibus meis - arripiens - et PRIMA et pessima
tollensque - e mundo - et SANCTA et scelesta.

Each of the "good" words - prima and sancta - end up in two parallel phrases. Each of those parallel phrases contains a participle, a prepositional phrase, and an object of the participle which pairs the good word with its opposite. To vary things a little bit, I put the prepositional phrase before the participle the first time, and the second time I put the prepositional phrase after the participle. One of the fun things about working with parallelisms is that by emphasizing the similarity you also get to play around with little differences, too!

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Do you have some good strategies for doing the Vocabulary Challenge in Latin? Share your ideas here! Here are some strategies that I've used in writing my responses.

Writing Strategy: Proverb Commentary

When you read a list of words, perhaps that list will somehow remind you of a Latin proverb or saying that you already know. You can then use your sentence to provide a kind of introduction to or explanation of that existing proverb. You can quote the existing proverb in your response, and add your own words as a kind of commentary on that proverb.

For example, when I saw this list - equus - res - discipulus - iste - animal - it reminded me of the medieval proverb about someone sending his "asinus" son off to the university, in the mistaken hope that this would turn the "asinus" into an "equus" instead: Parisios bipedum si quis transmittat asellum, si fuit hic asinus, non ibi fiet equus.

When I saw this list - longs - ars - puer - invito - is - I could not help but think of Horace's dictum Ars longa, vita brevis, so provided a kind of commentary on that saying, making it explicit that even if we live to be a ripe old age, we cannot hope to have perfected our art. Here's how it turned out.

So, I wrote a sentence that explains the metaphorical thinking of that proverb, and attached it to the proverb. You can see the results here if you are curious.

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Do you have some good strategies for doing the Vocabulary Challenge in Latin? Share your ideas here! Here are some strategies that I've used in writing my responses.

Strategies

Here is a list of the posts describing different strategies you can use in responding to the vocabulary challenge:

• Sound Repetition
  
• Rhyme
• Parallel Structures
• Opposites
  
• Correlative Word Pairs
• The Power of Participles
  
• Conditional Statements without Verbs
• Comment on a Proverb
  
• Amplify a Proverb
  
• Write a Moral for a Story
  

Do you have any favorite strategies you'd like to share? Please add a comment to this post with any tips and tricks you find useful!

Strategy: The Power of Participles

Participles are quite amazing things, and along you to build very expressive sentences using a minimum of words. Have you ever thought about the ways in which participles are different from verbs? Here are two general ideas to ponder:

Participles are happily un-coordinated. In Latin, there can only be one main verb in a sentence. If you have other verbs, those verbs have to be coordinated with the main verb. You can use coordinating conjunctions or subordinating conjunctions but, generally speaking, you must do something to coordinate your verbs. That can get a bit complicated, and it also forces you to make explicit the relationship between the verbs - temporal, causal, etc. - that perhaps is not really important to the message you are communicating. If you use participles instead, you have the option to leaving things suggestively un-coordinated, as it were.

Participles have gender. One of the interesting and unusual things about Latin verbs, and about the verbs of Indo-European in general, is that they are not marked for gender. They have person, they have number... but they do not have gender. Given the obsession with gender in the world of nouns and adjectives, the fact that gender drops out of the equation in the world of verbs is a bit odd, don't you think? Well, when you use participles, you add gender back into the verbal equation! Admittedly, participles don't have number - but participles, by having gender, build a nice bridge between the world of nouns and the world of verbs. If you think of participles in English terms, you don't realize what great "glue" they are for knitting a sentence together, since gender is not important in English. In Latin, however, gender is enormously important, and participles help you knit your verbs firmly into the gendered world of nouns.

So, whenever you are pondering a verb in Latin, think about whether you want to use a participle instead. After you have a main verb for your sentence, for every other action, you really can choose between using a verb or using a participle instead. If you think of what you want to say in English first, you will rarely come up with a participle, because participles just do not play the same role in English. So, try to banish thoughts of English from your mind, and let Latin participles exert their allure. If you have more than one verb in your sentence, think about that just a minute or so, letting your mind explore the participle options, and see if you might want to try replacing one of your verbs with a participle, just to see how it sounds!

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Do you have some good strategies for doing the Vocabulary Challenge in Latin? Share your ideas here! Here are some strategies that I've used in writing my responses.

Verbum Hodiernum: EQUUS

The word for today is equus, horse. This was a word that I learned from it being the title of a famous Peter Schaffer play long before I learned Latin: Equus.

The word equus is actually related to the Greek word for horse, ἱππος - which is ἱκκος in Aeolic Greek. That Aeolian form makes it easier to see the connection between Greek ἱκκος and Latin equus.

In addition to equus, it is also worth mentioning the late Latin word caballus (itself a borrowing from Celtic), since this has been a productive word in the Romance languages (French chevalier, Spanish caballero, etc.) and indirectly also for English, in words like "cavalry," "chivalry," etc.

As you can guess, there are lots of sayings and proverbs about horses:

Procul a pedibus equinis!

Noli equi dentes inspicere donati.

Qui non habet equum, vadat pedibus.

Paulatim evellitur cauda equina.

Claudit eques stabulum, cum latro cepit equum.

Frenis saepe repugnat equus.

Non faciunt meliorem equum aurei freni.

Stultus est qui, equum empturus, non ipsum inspicit, sed stratum eius et frenos.

Non opus est celeri subdere calcar equo.

Generosus equus vel umbra virgae regitur.

Generosus equus haud curat latratum canum.

Generosi ac nobiles equi melius facili freno reguntur.

Qui fuit hic asinus, non fiet in urbe caballus.

Parisios bipedum si quis transmittat asellum, si fuit hic asinus, non ibi fiet equus.

Homo sine religione sicut equus sine freno.

In praesaepe canis faeno non vescitur ipse, nec sinit faenum qui cupit equus edat.

Si negas equo pabulum, tibi negat pedes.

Si tibi parvus equus, tunc parvus erit labor eius.

Talis equus tibi erit, qualis curator equorum.

Optima pes domini fundo laetamina culto: non cibus aut potus, cura saginat equum.

Tempore difficiles veniunt ad aratra iuvenci; tempore dura pati frena docentur equi.

Nempe senescenti leviora impone caballo.

Optat ephippia bos piger, optat arare caballus.

Plus validis septem tractat natura caballis.

Vinum poetarum caballus.

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Here is the list of 366 Latin Words, and you can browse the daily Word Essays here. :-)

Vocabulary Challenge: omnia fert aetas

Here are the words for today's vocabulary challenge:

primus, prima, primum - sanctus, sancta, sanctum - arripio (arripere) - aetas (aetatis, f.) - ex (prep. + abl.)

As soon as I saw the words arripere and aetas, I thought of the famous saying in Vergil: omnia fert aetas, meaning "time bears all things away" from Eclogue 9: Omnia fert aetas, animum quoque; saepe ego longos / cantando puerum memini me condere soles.

So I decided to use today's words to amplify that idea, building on it this way:

Omnia fert aetas, e manibus meis arripiens et prima et pessima tollensque e mundo et sancta et scelesta.

I tried to build in various parallels with some sound-play, too, like in the pairing of the opposites prima and pessima, and the opposites sancta et scelesta, along with the contrast between the personal experience of e manibus meis and the collective e mundo.

So far, I think is my favorite one of the vocabulary challenges I have done, since the saying omnia fert aetas is one of my favorites to begin with!

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If you came up with something good for today's Vocabulary Challenge, share the results in a comment here at the blog! Meanwhile, here are my past answers to the Vocabulary Challenge each day. :-)

Writing Strategy: Sound Repetition

Sound repetition is a very powerful stylistic strategy to use in your writing! There are lots of different ways you can use sound repetition.

Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds. Consonance is the repetition of a consonant sound in a series of words. Alliteration is a specific form of consonance when the repeated consonant sound is found at the beginning of the words.

Rhyme is a form of sound repetition which you can find in medieval Latin, but which is quite uncommon in classical Latin. Near rhyme can be based on similar but not identical sound repetition.

In this list - primus - sanctus - arripere - aetas - ex - I knew that I wanted to create opposing pairs for the adjectives primus and sanctus. For the many possible words that are the opposite of primus, I chose pessimus, because of the alliteration. For sanctus, I chose scelestus as the opposite, again because of the alliteration. I really like the idea of words that are opposite in meaning sharing a similarity in sound. You can see the results here if you are curious.

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Do you have some good strategies for doing the Vocabulary Challenge in Latin? Share your ideas here! Here are some strategies that I've used in writing my responses.

Writing Strategy: Amplify a Proverb

In addition to commenting on a proverb, you can also recreate a proverb, amplifying it and expressing the same idea in a new way.

In some cases, there might be an existing proverb that contains several of the words you need already! When I saw this list - mereo - fides - vel - remaneo - unus - that immediately reminded me of this traditional proverb: Testis in uno falsus, in nullo fidem meretur. The proverb already had three of the five words in it! So, all I needed to do was find a way to fit in vel and remaneo, which was not hard to do: Testis in uno vel falsus vel ambiguus, in nullo fidem meretur; dubitatio semper remanet.

Sometimes, you might end up amplifying the proverb to a much greater extent. For example, when I saw this list of words - primus - sanctus - arripio - aetas - ex - the words aetas and arripio made me think of Vergil's famous words, Omnia fert aetas, "Time bears away all things." I use that tiny proverb in Vergil to inspire my longer expression of the same basic idea, using all the words in the list. You can see the results here if you are curious.

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Do you have some good strategies for doing the Vocabulary Challenge in Latin? Share your ideas here! Here are some strategies that I've used in writing my responses.

Verbum Hodiernum: PRIMUS

Today's word is primus - and note that the i is long: prīmus, prīma, prīmum.

This is an incredibly productive word root in Latin, and is also involved in innumerable English words borrowed from Latin. There is also a Latin phrase that we still use in English: prima facie.

The word in Latin is actually a sneaky kind of superlative: the "mus" ending that you see there is actually the same as the "mus" ending that you find in superlative adjectives: fortissimus, optimus, primus. The English word "first" is also a superlative, with the same "st" that you see in other English superlatives like "fastest," "best," etc. That's why you cannot be "firstest" in English, ha ha.

So, with the Latin primus, what we are probably dealing with here is an archaic preposition that has fallen out of use - pri - but which we can still see in these derivative forms that relate to being first in line, ahead of other things, such as prior and priscus. The preposition pri has not survived, but instead we have similar prepositions such as pro and prae.

So, something that is primus is the most "pri" of all, the thing that is absolutely first.

This might be something first in a sequence, like the way A and B are the first letters of the alphabet, primae litterae.

You can also have things first in time: primo tempore, meaning "at the first opportunity" or a primo, "from the first, from the beginning." Something primitivius in Latin is the thing first-born in time, such as the flores primitivi, the flowers that bloom first, ahead of the others.

Things can also be first (or forward) in space: primus digitus is the tip of your finger.

There is also a value judgment implied here: things that are first are also best. This is where we get the word princeps, for example, the "first" guy, the "number one" guy - which is where we get "prince" in English.

There are quite a few adverbial expressions created from this word, including primum and primo, and also (more rarely) prime and primiter.

Here are some examples of today's word in Latin sayings and proverbs; for more information, see the page at the Scala Sapientiae, which contains notes on some of the proverbs cited below, as well as additional proverbs:

Primus sum egomet mihi.

Non possunt primi esse omnes omni in tempore.

Erunt novissimi primi, et primi novissimi.

Primo quoque die nemo magister erit.

Nemo primo quoque die fit doctus.

Primus amor potior.

Nemo potest scire, quis primus debet abire.

Primus inter pares.

Prima facie.

In bello nec primus nec ultimus esto.

Primus beatus qui per se sapiat, secundus qui sapientem audiat.

Primum: non nocere.

Prima virtus est vitio carere.

Vis loqui? Disce tacere primo.

Offeras primum pacem.

Morbum suum nosse est pars prima salutis.

Alium silere quod voles, primus sile.

Primum est suo esse contentum.

Primum hominis officium est suo esse contentum.

Prima virum primum mulier deiecit ad imum.

Vocabulary Challenge: quanta cura, tanta fortuna

The words in today's challenge are quite abstract:

refero (referre) - quantus, quanta, quantum - dignus, digna, dignum - verus, vera, verum - cura (curae)

I decided to make use of two ideas in making my statement for today. First of all, I wanted to use a correlative expression with quantus-tantus; correlative expressions make for powerful proverbs in Latin. Also I wanted to play with the idea of cura and fortuna: it seems to me that the best way to be "lucky" is to pay attention and be careful - if you can do that, good luck will follow (similarly, it's not right to blame "bad luck" when the real fault is being careless or not paying attention).

So, here's what I came up with:

Cura, si vera, res dignas semper refert: quanta cura, tanta fortuna!

I really like the quanta-tanta part. :-)

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If you came up with something good for today's Vocabulary Challenge, share the results in a comment here at the blog! Meanwhile, here are my past answers to the Vocabulary Challenge each day.

Writing Strategy: Opposites

A powerful way to organize a sentence is through OPPOSITES. So, when you look at the Vocabulary Challenge words, start by asking yourself if you can find some pair of opposite words to use in building your sentence and expressing your ideas.

Some words instantly seem to conjure up their opposites! In this list - crux - bellum - meus - qui - quoque - I knew right away that I wanted to build my sentence based on the opposition between bellum and pax, war and peace. So, I ended up with two parallel phrases: in bello and in pace. I like the interplay between having opposite words used in parallel constructions! If you are curious, you can see how the rest of it turned out here.

Other opposites are not immediately obvious. For example, when I saw this list - equus - res - discipulus - iste - animal - I thought of the contrast between equus and asinus (a very common opposition in Latin fables and proverbs!), and I built my saying around that; take a look if you are curious. Another opposite that could work with this same set of words is discipulus-magister, so you could build your sentence around that contrast. Not every word in a language has a clear opposite, but if you can figure out, in Latin, what the opposites of the words in your list would be, that gives you one very good strategy for writing your sentence!

In this list - primus - sanctus - arripere - aetas - ex - I thought of creating parallel pairs, taking the positive words primus and sanctus and pairing them up with their opposites. I paired primus with pessimus and sanctus with scelestus. So, not only was this a great way to build my sentence based on opposites, it also gave me a parallelism and alliteration, too! You can see the results here if you are curious.

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Do you have some good strategies for doing the Vocabulary Challenge in Latin? Share your ideas here! Here are some strategies that I've used in writing my responses.

Verbum Hodiernum: REFERO

Today's word, refero, is a compound of the verb fero. It has the same irregular set of parts as the root verb: referō, referre, retulī (you can also see rettulī) and relātus. Both the present stem and the participle are highly productive in English: refer, reference, referendum, etc., and also relate, relation, etc.

The basic meaning is to carry back, to bring back. I really like the frequent use with the word pedes, feet, as in this item from Cicero: me referunt pedes in Tusculanum, (my) feet bring me back to Tusculanum (near modern Frascati).

There is also a reflexive use, meaning to go back, return (i.e. return oneself): Romam se rettulit (he returned to Rome) for example, and me domum refero (I go back home).

It is also commonly used to mean to "report" on something, to bring back news or or intelligence about something as in this example from Aeneid IV: tales miserrima fletus Fertque refertque soror.

From this communicative usage comes the meaning of "reply" or "say in response to something" - e.g., ego tibi refero, I reply to you, I answer you.

Here are some proverbs using forms of the verb refero:

Par pari refertur.

E relato referre fere mentiri est.

Naturale est manum saepius ad id referre, quod dolet.

O mihi praeteritos referat si Iuppiter annos!

Gratia referenda.

Nullum officium referenda gratia magis necessarium est.

Beneficium non esse conferendum nec in puerum nec in senem: in hunc, quia perit antequam gratiae referendae detur oportunitas, in illum quia non meminit.

Also, you need to be aware of a potentially confusing idiom that can LOOK like refero, but is not: mea refert, "it is my business, it concerns me." This is actually a contraction of mea re-fert, where the "re" is not the verbal prefix re- that you see in refero; it is instead the noun res. You can also negate the phrase: Mea minime refert, "It's not any of my business!" Here are some proverbs using this other sense of refero, where the re- is from res:

Tua quod nihil refert, ne cures.

Non quid detur refert, sed qua mente.

Quam bene vivas refert, non quam diu.

Nihil mea refert utrum dives sim aut pauper.

Non tam refert unde natus sis, sed qui sis.

Non quam diu, sed quam bene acta sit vita refert.

Non refert quam multos, sed quam bonos libros habeas ac legas.

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Here is the list of 366 Latin Words, and you can browse the daily Word Essays here. :-)

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Here is the list of 366 Latin Words, and you can browse the daily Word Essays here. :-)

Vocabulary Challenge: Quam ingratus es tu

Here is the vocabulary challenge for May 28:

hic, haec, hoc (huius) - modus (modi) - gens (gentis, f.) - quam (adv.) - reddo (reddere)

When I saw this list of words, I immediately thought of the fable about the ungrateful snake - here's a version from the Via Latina Reader:

Agricola anguem reperit, frigore paene exstinctum. Misericordia motus, eum fovit sinu et subter alas recondidit. Mox anguis recreatus vires recepit, et agricolae, pro beneficio, letale vulnus inflixit.

So, I thought I would write a moral for the story using today's words:

Moriens, agricola exclamat: O anguis, quam ingratus es tu; sero intelligo omnem gentem tuam gratias huius modi nobis hominibus reddere!

Here's an illustration from Joseph Jacobs' edition of the fables:

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If you came up with something good for today's Vocabulary Challenge, share the results in a comment here at the blog! Meanwhile, here are my past answers to the Vocabulary Challenge each day. :-)

Verbum Hodiernum: HIC

Today's word is one of those sneaky little pronouns, hic-haec-hoc, with huius as the genitive form. This is a demonstrative pronoun, something that you can use for pointing things out, distinguishing one thing ("this") in relation to another thing ("that").

Have you ever wondered how these words ended up with a letter "c" in some of the forms? That "c" is a remnant of an emphatic particle "ce" that was added to the root form of the pronouns. So, in archaic Latin, instead of hic-haec-hoc, you had hice-haece-hoce. You could even see the "c" in some forms of the pronoun that don't have a "c" anymore, such as the genitive plurals - you know the forms horum and harum, but in archaic Latin you can find the forms horunc and harunc. Likewise for the genitive: you are used to the form huius, but in older Latin you can also find huiusce. You might also have seen this form in the expression huiuscemodi (for huiusmodi - huius modi).

You can also see a remnant of this emphatic "ce" in other Latin words, such as nunc and sic. Another place you can see the "ce" particle is when "ne" is added, which causes the "ce" to change to "ci" - as in the expressions hicine and sicine.

In order to understand the meaning of the hic-haec-hoc pronoun in Latin, it helps to see it as part of a series: hic-haec-hoc refers to something closest to me, the speaker - you can think of it as a kind of first-person demonstrative pronoun. The pronoun ille-illa-illud refers to something over by someone else, not something near me - you can think of it as a kind of third-person demonstrative pronoun. Finally, there is the pronoun iste-ista-istud, which refers to something with a special relationship to you (often with a pejorative sense) - "that thing of yours, not mine," something like a second person pronoun.

Adverbs. It's important to remember that hīc can be used as an adverb meaning "here, in this place." Likewise, remember hinc, "from here, from this place, hence" and huc, "to here, to this place, hither."

Here are some examples of today's word in Latin sayings and proverbs; for more information, see the page at the Scala Sapientiae, which contains notes on some of the proverbs cited below, as well as additional proverbs:

Quod sumus, hoc eritis.

Hoc unum scio: me nihil scire.

Quod tibi vis fieri, hoc fac alteri.

Quod tibi, hoc alteri.

Hoc unum certum est: nihil esse certi.

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.

Patria mea totus hic mundus est.

Quod in corde, hoc in ore.

Hic perierat et inventus est.

Nobiliter vivens et agens, haec nobilis est gens.

Hoc sustinete, maius ne veniat malum.

Cui deest pecunia, huic desunt omnia.

Hoc retine verbum: frangit Deus omne superbum!.

Hoc portat leviter, quod portat quisque libenter.

Haec olim meminisse iuvabit.

Nunc hunc, nunc illum consumit gladius.

Quae fieri fas est, tempore haec fiunt suo.

Cui deus auxilio est, huic onus omne leve est.

Hunc fidum dico, bene qui succurrit amico.

Multa rogare, rogata tenere, retenta docere: haec tria discipulum faciunt superare magistrum.

Vocabulary Challenge: Testis falsus

Here's the vocabulary challenge for May 27:

mereo (merere) - fides (fidei) - vel (conj.) - remaneo (remanere) - unus, una, unum (unius)

Here's the sentence I came up with!

Testis in uno vel falsus vel ambiguus, in nullo fidem meretur; dubitatio semper remanet.

For this one, I remembered a proverb that I had posted for the word mereo - Testis in uno falsus, in nullo fidem meretur - and so I adapted that proverb especially for today's challenge!

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If you came up with something good for today's Vocabulary Challenge, share the results in a comment here at the blog! Meanwhile, here are my past answers to the Vocabulary Challenge each day. :-)

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Vocabulary Challenge: O prophetae!

Here's the vocabulary challenge for May 26:

O (exclam.) - ante (prep. + acc.) - via (viae) - sine (prep. + abl.) - praedico (praedicere)

Here's the sentence I came up with!

O prophetae, quomodo futura praedicere potestis ante tempus et sine scientia omnium quae in vitae via invenientur?

There are lots of great Aesop's fables that make fun of would-be prophets - plus, here is a funny little anecdotes about Rex Ludovicus and his astrologers (more about this story), who are no less well-informed than the average donkey:

Ludovīcus, rēx Gallōrum, fidem māximam habēbat eī generī hominum, quī astrologī vocantur, quod mōtū stellārum imbrēs ventōsque praedīcere solent. Rēx, quī multum in vēnātiōnibus erat, aliquandō dum māgnum cervum canibus per silvās agitat, celerī equō longē ante omnēs sociōs praetervectus est. Intereā caelum nūbibus obscūrātur, gravisque imber cum multā grandine in terram dēcidit. Rēx igitur, quod parvam casam inter arborēs videt, tempestātis perfugium petit. Tum ubi is graviter incūsābat indoctōs illōs astrologōs, "Nūlla tamen tempestās," respondit agricola cūius casa erat, "mē incautum excipit; semper enim meus asinus, quī frūgēs hortī ad forum portāre solet, vōce raucā imbrem mihi praedīcit." "Nīmīrum," cum rīsū respondit rēx, "si tuus asinus tam bonus astrologus est, meōs astrologōs posthāc in numerō asinōrum habēbō."

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If you came up with something good for today's Vocabulary Challenge, share the results in a comment here at the blog! Meanwhile, here are my past answers to the Vocabulary Challenge each day. :-)

Verbum Hodiernum: MEREO

Word. Today's word is a verb, mereo (merēre, merui, meritus).

Meaning. The basic meaning is not hard to remember, given that we use the borrowed word "merit" in English. (Likewise in English we use the terms emeritus and emerita also!)

Related Latin words. There are LOTS of related Latin words but my favorite has to be meretrix! There is also merenda, merx and merces,

Etymology. The etymology of the word seems to relate it to a similar word in Greek, μέρος, which means "share" or "portion," the idea then being that merere means "to get your part, to get the portion that is yours."

Usage. The verb takes a variety of different constructions:

• Accusative: Laudem merui. Also, you can "earn payment," as a soldier earns his pay: Meruit stipendia in bello.
• Ut/Ne: Meruit ut decoraretur.
• Infinitive: Mereo sanctus haberi.

Deponent. The verb is also found in the deponent, and can taken an object when deponent, as in this saying: Fraus meretur fraudem.

Participle. The participle, merens, is commonly used, as in this inscription: HOMINI BENE MERENTISSIMO (not just bene merens, but bene merentissimus!)

Noun. There is a noun, meritum, which means reward or recompense (good or ill). E.g., pro ingentibus meritis praemia acceperant.

Adverb. The adverb merito means "justly, deservedly." It is sometimes accompanied by iure: merito iure. Note also the superlative forms of the adverb: meritissime and also meritissimo.

Here are some examples of today's word in Latin sayings and proverbs; for more information, see the page at the Scala Sapientiae, which contains notes on some of the proverbs cited below, as well as additional proverbs:

Aequo animo poenam qui meruere ferunt.

Fraus meretur fraudem.

Palmam qui meruit, ferat.

Dulcia non meruit, qui non gustavit amara.

Testis in uno falsus, in nullo fidem meretur.

Nemo coronatur, nisi certando mereatur.

Primus error veniam meretur.

Felix qui meruit tranquillam ducere vitam.

Exlex qui vivit, merito sine lege peribit.

Amittit merito proprium qui alienum appetit.

Qui sibimet vivit, aliis merito est mortuus.

Votum solvit libens laetus merito.

Merito hunc manducant sues qui se miscet inter furfures.

Quod pateris merito, patienter ferre memento.

Pravus habet meritis praemia digna suis.

Alienis meritis non superbias.

Non merito, sed fortuito.

Utque hostes armis, meritis sic vincit amicos.

Si panem dederis tristis, et panem et meritum perdidisti.

Merito beneficium legis amittit, qui legem ipsam subvertere intendit.

Vocabulary Challenge

Each day of the year, you will see a new Vocabulary Challenge. This is a set of five words, chosen at random from the Latin High Frequency list. The challenge is for you to compose a sentence, or several related sentences, using each of those five words at least once. You can also get a random Vocabulary Challenge, if you don't like the one listed for a particular day (just reload the page to get a new group of words at random). The words are all link to the online Glossa dictionary, which reproduces the text of the Lewis & Short dictionary, with macrons.

Very rarely, randomness will make the same word appear twice in the group of five. When that happens, take it as a challenge to find a related word - so, if aurum shows up twice in the list, maybe you can use both aurum and a related word like aureus or auratus in your sentence(s).

Vocabulary Challenge for Today:

Random Vocabulary Challenge:

Here is the challenge:

Can you manage to fit all five words into a single sentence? If so, that's great!

Alternatively, you might want to use several sentences. See if you can turn those sentences into a little story.

If you come up with a sentence or sentence(s) that you are proud of and would like to share with others, post them as a comment here at the blog. Make sure you list the five words at the beginning of the sentence(s) so that people can see what you were working with. Here's an example:

fera - saepe - summus - satis - scio: Ferae enim homines non sunt, sed satis sciunt, et saepe summa!

ante - ostium - de - autem - antequam: Antequam ostium aperio, scire volo aliquid de homine qui ante ostium stat; ille autem nihil loquitur.

Here are some more examples - I'll be tagging the posts at this blog as "challenge" when I decided to give it a try!

(image source)

366 Basic Latin Words

I've updated the list; to see which words have essays, check the right-hand column of the blog, where there are links to all the blog posts at the top! The links below go to the Lewis & Short dictionary at the Glossa website.

ab
ac
accipio
ad
adeo
adsum
aetas
ago
aio
aliquis
alius
alter
altus
amicus
amo
amor
an
anima
animus
annus
ante
apud
aqua
arma
ars
at
atque
audio
aurum
aut
autem
bellum
bene
beo
bibo
bonus
cado
caelum
Caesar
cano
capio
caput
carmen
carus
castra
causa
cedo
certus
ceterus
civitas
clarus
coepi
cognosco
colo
consilium
contra
cor
corpus
credo
cum
cunctus
cura
de
debeo
deinde
deus
dico
dies
dignus
disco
diu
divus
do
doceo
dolor
dominus
domus
duco
dulcis
dum
duo
durus
dux
ego
enim
eo
eques
equus
ergo
et
etiam
ex
exercitus
facilis
facio
fatum
felix
fero
ferus
fides
filia
filius
finis
fio
fleo
flos
flumen
fortis
fortuna
frater
fugio
gaudeo
gens
genus
gero
gloria
gratia
gravis
habeo
hic
hinc
homo
honor
hora
hostis
iam
ibi
idem
igitur
ignis
ille
imperium
in
inde
ingenium
inquam
inter
invenio
ipse
is
iste
ita
itaque
iter
iubeo
Iuppiter
iuvenis
labor
lacrima
laus
lego
levis
lex
liber
licet
littera
locus
longus
loquor
lumen
lux
magis
magister
magnus
maior
malus
manus
mare
mater
maximus
medius
melior
mens
mereo
meus
miles
mille
miror
miser
mitto
modus
mons
morior
mors
mos
moveo
multus
mundus
munus
nam
natura
natus
ne
-ne
nec
nemo
neque
nihil
nisi
nolo
nomen
non
nos
nosco
noster
notus
novus
nox
nullus
numquam
nunc
O
oculus
omnis
opus
orbis
ordo
orior
os
parens
paro
pars
parvus
pater
patior
patria
pectus
per
periculum
pes
peto
pius
placeo
plenus
plus
pono
populus
possum
post
potis
praecipio
primus
prior
pro
proprius
propter
publicus
puella
puer
puto
quaero
qualis
quam
quantus
quasi
-que
qui
quia
quicumque
quidam
quidem
quisquam
quisque
quisquis
quod
quoque
rapio
ratio
reddo
redeo
refero
regnum
relinquo
res
respondeo
rex
Romanus
sacer
saepe
sanctus
satis
scio
scribo
se
secundus
sed
semper
senex
sequor
servus
seu
si
sic
sicut
signum
silva
similis
simul
sine
socius
sol
soleo
solus
solvo
somnus
spes
sto
studium
sub
sum
summus
super
surgo
suus
talis
tam
tamen
tantus
tempus
teneo
terra
timeo
totus
trado
tres
tristis
tu
tum
tunc
tuus
ubi
ullus
umbra
unda
unde
unus
urbs
usque
ut
uterque
uxor
valeo
-ve
vel
venio
ventus
Venus
verbum
vero
verus
vester
via
video
vinco
vir
virgo
virtus
vis
vita
vivo
voco
volo
vos
votum
vox
vultus