expletives

I’d never pondered the link between expleo, explere (to fill) and the word ‘expletive’ before, but it was brought to my attention the other day in a very interesting book I’m reading about swearing. Here’s the link:

With toe-stubbing swearing, the actual expletive used is functionally immaterial. It’s the act of letting off steam, emitting some pent-up emotion that speaks, if you like, independently of the words used. This semantic vacuum is highlighted by the secondary meaning of the word ‘expletive’, that is, ‘any syllable, word or phrase conveying no independent meaning, especially one inserted in a line of verse for the sake of the meter’, such as ‘Tra la’ in ‘The flowers that bloom in the spring, Tra la’. That’s one to remember next time you get pulled up for swearing.

(Language Most Foul, Ruth Wajnryb)

Tiresias

Here's another passage from Eucalyptus, which reminded me of a story from Ovid's Metamorphoses.

So there he is in Bathurst, our traveller from Britain.

It is at Bathurst, or rather on the outskirts, that the story develops a sudden twist. On the second day he was wandering along the river when he came across two brown snakes - ne shedding its skin. He killed the wrong one, and was turned into a woman. That's apparently what happened.

When last heard of he was living in Seattle - or was it San Francisco? - as a woman.

In Verrem V Word Cloud

Here's another word cloud, based on the prescribed lines from In Verrem V:

Catullus and Horace Word Cloud

Here are a couple more word clouds, first for Catullus (based on the prescribed poems for 2008-2010):



and simlilarly for Horace:

Eucalyptus

I recently finished reading Eucalyptus, by Murray Bail. It's quite a slow-moving story, but I found it very captivating. On the surface the book is about a father who decides that the man who correctly names every eucalypt on his property will win the hand of his daughter, but it turns into a series of loosely connected stories suggested by the scientific  (i.e. Latin or Greek) names of the various eucalypts.

It reminded me a lot of Ovid's Metamorphoses, which likewise is a loosely connected series of myths, and at some points the resemblence goes even deeper. Have a look at the following passages and see if they remind you of some of the myths you might find in Ovid:

Aeneid X Word Cloud

Out of curiosity I've created (with the help of wordle) a word cloud from Aeneid X, using the lines prescribed for study in the HSC this year. Here is the result:

Mt Vesuvius

Here are a couple of interesting animations related to the eruption of Mt Vesuvius:

• eruption of Vesuvius
• eruption of Vesuvius II
• What did the eruption look like
• nine minute eruption video
• growth of a stratovolcano

The cambridge website also has a whole bunch of links for you to explore.

OzCLO

I don't know about you, but I'm excited about OzCLO - the Australian Computational and Linguistics Olympiad. I only studied linguistics at uni for a year, but it was one of my favourite courses from my five years there. The competition only started in 2008 and aims to help students "to develop... strategies for solving problems in fascinating real languages."

The sample problems on the website are fascinating, dealing with a huge variety of languages including Aboriginal languages, Japanese braille and Linear B (an ancient Greek script). The problems are challenging, and encourage you to think analytically and creatively. I found them really stimulating, and can imagine that they would be perfect for gifted and talented students. I'd love to enter a team from my school for next year's competition - stay tuned to hear more.

your favourite author

I've added a poll to my blog to let you vote for your favourite Roman author (you have to scroll down a bit to see it). I've only included the authors I've studied this year with my senior classes: Virgil, Cicero, Catullus, Horace and Ovid. If you vote, leave me a comment explaining who you voted for and why.

I had a similar poll set up ages ago, I don't remember what the figures were, but you can read a brief bio of each author as well as some of the comments here.

videmus*

I stumbled across some hilarious youtube videos the other of Eddie Izzard giving some reflections both on learning Latin and on Roman history more generally. I've never really seen much of his stuff before, but as well as being very funny, he seems to be pretty intelligent. He is also very rude (don't watch these videos if you're put off by swearing).

Anyway, you can find them here:

• Pliny
• Hannibal
• more Hannibal (good material, poor quality video)

*videmus is the correct Latin plural of video, right?

mater Euryali et rex Antiochus

Here's a surprising statistic. Latin (with 185 candidates) is the ninth most popular foreign language at the HSC this year. Ninth most popular is not a lot to boast about, but here is a list of courses with fewer candidates than Latin Continuers this year*:

• Vietnamese Continuers (166 candidates)
• Chinese Continuers (131 candidates)
• Modern Greek Continuers (116 candidates)
• Indonesian Continuers (77 candidates)
• Turkish Continuers (56 candidates)

Armenian, Croatian, Dutch, Filipino, Hindi, Hungarian, Macedonian, Maltese, Polish, Portuguese, Serbian, Swedish, Tamil and Ukrainian all had fewer than 50 candidates.

For the record Classical Greek and Classical Hebrew had 11 and 37 candidates respectively. Ancient History was the seventh most popular HSC course over all, with 12 127 candidates. You can find the full list here.

*These figures do not include Background Speakers or Beginners courses, which are in some cases(especially for Chinese) substantial.

Anyway, those 185 Latin Continuers students sat their HSC exam yesterday, and the 11 I spoke to afterwards seemed pretty happy with it. No real surprises, but enough interesting questions to allow them to shine. Here's my translation of the unseen passages, in case anyone is interested:

Aeneid X mind-map

Here's a basic mind-map I've created showing the relationships of the important characters from Aeneid Book X. Have I left anything off?

[Blue is for goodies, purple for baddies]

Silphium

Here is a recipe, taken from the Roman gourmand Apicius:

Oxygarum (which is similar to garum or rather an acid sauce) is digestible and is composed of:

• 1/2 ounce of pepper
• 3 scruples of Gallic silphium
• 6 scruples of cardamom
• 6 of cumin, 1 scruple of leaves
• 6 scruples of dry mint.

These ingredients are broken singly and crushed and made into a paste bound by honey. When this work is done or whenever you desire add broth and vinegar to taste.

O Clementiam

O clementiam populi Romani seu potius patientiam miram ac singularem! Civem Romanum securi esse percussum M. Annius, eques Romanus, dicit, taces: archipiratam negat, fateris. Fit gemitus omnium et clamor, cum tamen a praesenti supplicio tuo continuit populus Romanus se et repressit et salutis suae rationem iudicum severitati reservavit. Quid? sciebas tibi crimini datum iri? quam ob rem sciebas, quam ob rem etiam suspicabare? Inimicum habebas neminem; si haberes, tamen non ita vixeras ut metum iudici propositum habere deberes.

(In Verrem V.74)

Explain the irony present in the final sentence of this extract (Inimicum habebas… habere deberes).

Talia per Latium

Talia per Latium. quae Laomedontius heros
cuncta videns magno curarum fluctuat aestu,
atque animum nunc huc celerem nunc dividit illuc
in partisque rapit varias perque omnia versat,
sicut aquae tremulum labris ubi lumen aenis
sole repercussum aut radiantis imagine lunae
omnia pervolitat late loca, iamque sub auras
erigitur summique ferit laquaria tecti.
nox erat et terras animalia fessa per omnis
alituum pecudumque genus sopor altus habebat,
cum pater in ripa gelidique sub aetheris axe
Aeneas, tristi turbatus pectora bello,
procubuit seramque dedit per membra quietem.

(Aeneid VIII.18-30)

Identify the tone of this extract and explain how Virgil's language has helped to create this tone.