January Blog Post- "Latin Helps us All the Time"

January Blog Post- "Latin Helps us All the Time"

Lucy Robinson

1. My first experience where Latin helped me while not in class was this month. During rehearsals for the school musical Matilda, I learned about a song called "The Hammer,". In the song, we sing a verse that says "Circulum est Deus! Deus!" which translates to "Circle is God! God!". Their school motto is "Bambinatum est Magitum" which is fake-Latin for "Children are Maggots". Though the second phrase is not actual Latin, it does represent how most schools mottos are. The phrase circle is God! relates to the song Ms. Trunchbull is singing. She talks about throwing a Hammer for your country, which is a reference to the Hammer throw she won in the 1972 Olympics. She then goes on to say you have to stay inside the circle, which is part of the rules, but it also a metaphor for doing things the way they should be done. Relating the circle to God means that if you step outside the circle, you go to hell, which is what Ms. Trunchbull thinks the children are doing.

2. The second experience is the World Language Olympics we did on the last Monday of January. Other than the fact that we had a whole section on Latin, I relate this to when I had to run a station. At the beginning of the Olympics, instead of going with my advisory I went to go lead a station on chariot races. Chariot races were very common in Ancient Rome for soldiers or slaves to compete with horses. 

3. At the beginning of January, I was told by my English teacher that we would be reading Frankenstein. Not only reading, but also annotating. Now, of course, I know what annotation meant, but I wanted to make sure that I did what was acceptable, so when I searched up the requirements of annotating, I was surprised to find out the meaning came from the word itself. Annotate comes from two words in Latin: ad and nota. Ad means to and nota means note, so the word annotate literally means to note.

4.  Also while in English class, in the First Trimester, we had to read William Shakespeare's, Julius Caesar. This play is based on the death of Julius Caesar and the moments leading up to it. The book is often used to explain his death and how the Roman Senators formed to become conspiracists. When reading the book though, I already knew the story from the many times I was told about it in Latin.

5. The last example of how Latin has helped me understand things today was when I was getting a lecture by Mr. Adcox and he said "Vice Versa". Now, I sort of knew what it meant, but when I went home I searched it up and found it's origin is from Latin. Vice Versa is an actual Latin saying that the English took which means "the other way around".

Reflection:

After putting all these examples together in a blog, I wonder how many times Latin has been brought up in my life and I didn't even know. Latin is an extra way to help me understand terms and history without me even knowing. Sometimes I know things from Latin and I don't even realize where I learned it, and that just shows how impactful Latin has been for me.