Dog Latin

[Carol]

I'm transferring parts of a post from the main list here because they're OT.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/186139

Carol earlier:
> > Setting aside real Muggle history and speculative WW history, probably the spells are in Latin (or dog Latin, not to be confused with pig Latin!) is that they "sound" magical (and vaguely medieval, in keeping with robes, cloaks, and castles with dungeons).

Potioncat responded:
> Pig Latin I know, what is dog Latin?

> (barco, barcas barcat..) <snip>

Carol responds:
LOL! Dog Latin is bad Latin or "a jargon imitating Latin." I'd say that JKR's spells (with notable exceptions like Avada Kedavra) fall into that category. I suppose the term originated when little English schoolboys who were learning Latin sent each other notes in "Latin." I can see it now: "Ego hateo Latinum!!!!" or something of the sort.) I think your example would qualify, BTW.

Potioncat wrote:
> I took Latin in middle school--I'm not sure where it helped more as I continued through college, in science or in English--but I'm glad I had it.

> btw, Carol, which history book(s) are you reading?

Carol responds:

I took two years of Latin in high school (ninth and tenth grade), which I should have folowed up with two years of another language, but for some reson, I thought I didn't need a modern language. (Bad mistke!) I followed it up with a refresher course in Latin for my master's degree; fortunately, the exam was a take-home translation and I could use a dictionary and other aids. I managed and Excellent, but only because I struck a balance between a literal translation and an idiomatic one, not because I'd actually mastered ablative absolutes and all that. What little Latin I remember is from my first year, the easy stuff: "Omnia Gallia est divisa in tres partes" and all that.

Right now, I'm struggling through "A History of Europe," a 585-page tome by J. M. Roberts. It's interesting but too general for my taste. I like detailed information about individual people, but the most I get is a paragraph or two about, say, Savanarola or Prince Henry the Navigator. (No Richard III, but it's just as well since he seems to think that Henry VII ended the "period of disorder" referred to as the Wars of the Roses.) Granted, he has a hard job, since he has to jump from Western to Eastern Europe and from England to France to Germany/Holy Roman Empire to Spain and Portugal. I'll go from there to some of my other books, trying to read some that have been sitting on my shelves gathering dust since 1992 rather than rereading the ones I like. I've been through all my books on paleontology, none of which is up to date, and I'll try to read the rest in more or less chronological order. The thing is, I bought a lot of books through the History Book Club that *sounded* interesting, but many of them are do dull that they put me to sleep. They're the kind of books that make people think that history is boring--rather like taking the History of Magic from Professor Binns. In the hands of someone who writes with clarity and grace and a sense of humor, the subjects of these books could be fascinating, but in the hands of these writers you get stuff like this: "[H]ence the insistence on CONCORDIA MILITUM. *Numeri,* non-legionary troops--national units of semimilitarized peasants--were also increased in the place of 'auxiliaries' (Chapter 5)." (from "The Severans" by Michael Grant, none of whose books I recommend.)

Hm. What? Carol wakes up from her doze, remembering nothing of what she's just typed.

I'm trying to go through my books to see what I should read or reread, what I should keep to read later, and what I should sell unread, including pretty much everything by Michael "Binns" Grant.

Meantime, I've been sneaking online peeks at "The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible" by  A. J. Jacobs, which, from what I've sampled so far, is both fascinating and in some places laugh-out-loud hilarious. (the author is the same guy who tried to become the world's smartest man--obviously mistaking knowledge for intelligence--by reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica and recording that experience in a kind of journal. I've sampled that book, "The Know-It-All," online, too. It's rather funny, but from what I've seen, "Living Biblically" is better. I picture myself sitting in an easy chair in Borders Bookstore, reading the parts I haven't read yet, and looking around furtively to see if anyone is staring at the crazy lady trying and failing to stifle her laughter. Anyway, the book is a great antidote for dry but educational books, especially the self-deprecating humor, which I tend to find endearing.

Carol, waiting for her *three* clients to sign their contracts, pay their deposits, and submit their manuscripts so she'll have something to edit!