Thursday, March 02, 2006

My New Motto

As you may or may not have noticed, but probably didn't because who keeps close track of these things, I have now acquired for myself my own personal motto! In Latin! It's almost ridiculous how euphoric I am. I got a friend who knows Latin to translate it for me (thank you so much!), and we spent some time fiddling with it to make it sound all proper and Latiny.
To me, Latin seems like one of the most quintessentially Geeky talents. So intellectual, so archaic, so useless, so much fun! Nothing says stodgy old professor or 18th century gentleman like Latin.
Which is why it makes me terribly sad that I don't know it. It was never even remotely an option at my high school (hah!), and I haven't gotten a chance to take any college classes on it either, nor is it likely that I will. The advantage of not knowing Latin, of course, is that reading becomes an adventure- like a giant brain teaser. Once, for example, at a boring Oneg Shabbat, a friend and I took a book in Greek off the shelf and tried to figure out what it said, neither of us knowing Greek other than being able to identify and sound out the letters. (It turned out to be the New Testament, and a book that began all with Biblical names, so we got off easy.)
Or, to a lesser extent, why it was so much fun to read the Harry Potter books in Hebrew, a process to which I attribute 90% of my current Hebrew knowledge. Between context, having read the books in English, and my scanty Hebrew, I was just able to make it through, but it was like leaping through breakers of water rather than the normal smooth slog that reading is. (Not that I don't like to read. But usually, little of the fun is derived from basic comprehension.)
And this is also the reason that I'm not going to translate my motto. Give you all the joy of figuring it out for yourselves. Or maybe it's just because I'm evil.

5 comments:

e-kvetcher said...

While I work on your new motto, see if you can decifer this one:

"Bittula shel torah zehu kiyuma"

e-kvetcher said...

That's 'decipher' above, and no, it is not my motto!

Tobie said...

I should hope not!

e-kvetcher said...

So, where do you go for Oneg Shabbat where they happen to have the NT in Greek on their bookshelves? I can't imagine it would be boring.

PS, when I say 'decipher' I don't mean translate.

Tobie said...

Oh...finding the meaning in the motto might be a bit trickier, yeah.
It was at someone else in the college, and no he's not a boring person, but I just don't do parties, especially since it was by the beginning of the year and I knew few people.
So I reverted to my general anti-social strategy of finding a wall, something to hold (an empty cup works well, it makes you look busy, and you can always escape from situations by saying you have to get some more to drink), and trying to find interesting things around the apartment. In which category the NT in Greek definately qualifies.