He looks as if he knew a great deal that can never be any use to him

[sovay]

Signs of Incipient Geekdom #1381: A friend signs an e-mail "SC" and your first thought is, "Who signs an e-mail 'scilicet'?"

I suppose it should follow without saying that I spent this afternoon researching Roman laws on citizenship and resident aliens for no project of my own, except that someone asked me a question to which I did not know the answer and I was curious. The process turned out to involve rather more Cicero than I had bargained for. Why does no one ever ask me questions that involve rather more Anakreon, or Lucan, or even Lykophron?

Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
And kept on drinking.

Comments

[teenybuffalo.livejournal.com]

Ah, obviously the message was from Smith College.
And on another topic:

MELISSA:
Pray, what authors should she read
Who in Classics would succeed?

PSYCHE:
If you'd climb the Helicon,
You should read Anacreon,
Ovid's Metamorphoses,
Likewise Aristophanes,
And the works of Juvenal:
These are worth attention, all;
But, if you will be advised,
You will get them Bowdlerized!

CHORUS: Ah! we will get them Bowdlerized!

[--W. S. Gilbert, Princess Ida]

[sovay]

CHORUS: Ah! we will get them Bowdlerized!

God, no! I am still scarred by an edition of Catullus I found once that had put all the best lines into French.

[larryhammer]

Which is why you learned French?

---L.

[sovay]

Alas, no. (It was easier just to read the Latin . . . ) But I suppose now I could go back and see how literal the French obfuscation was. If that too was cleaned up, I will just be depressed.