Monday, December 11, 2006

 

Joking About Latin

Mike Salter writes:
Your most recent post, the excerpt from John Mortimer's autobiography, brought back happy memories of reading it a few years ago. He's a wonderfully funny writer (have you ever read the "Rumpole" books?), who's given me many hours of pleasure over the years.

Something that might amuse you: a similar little excerpt from the book of the Yes, Prime Minister series (seems it's always the British who slip in little jokes about Latin):

...

The meeting started well enough. "Only one item on the agenda - abolition of the DES," I began cheerfully.

I noticed Humphrey was in much better spirits than I had expected. "If it's only one item, it's an agendUM," he corrrected me arrogantly as he sat across the table from me.

Bernard leapt to my defence. "I don't think the Prime Minister got as far as the second declension," he said. At least, I think he was leaping to my defence.



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