h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi beeline, good to meet up with you on Friday - hope you didn't get too wet on the journey home.

Don't know whether you've seen The Times today (to state the obvious) but they've done a few translations that I thought were up your street.

Cyberspace: guber spatium (lit. control of space)
e-mail: emissio electronica (lit. electronic sending)
Fax: machina simile faciendi (lit. machine for making something similar)
Internet: rete electronicum (lit. electronic net)
Online: connexus (lit. connected up)
Video Conference: video colloquiam (lit. visual discussion)
Videotape: fila electronica visualis (lit. visual electronic string)
Website: situs electronicus (lit. electronic site)

Oo - thanks for those. Typically 'Times', though - rather dry, and without much humour... I liked 'visual electronic string', though.

Sorry it took me so long to see this - I missed it. It needs a nice flashing, rotating, bevelled, chrome-rendered icon, with a gnarling klaxon-like sound effect, to catch my eye, I think. One for Jim, that!

See you Thursday.

Yeah, re-reading them they don't seem all that amusing. Trouble was I read 'em early one morning (and I think it was a Monday at that) so the chance of any quality vetting was minimal. The only thing I've ever really found amusing about Latin was my first Latin teacher, unfortunately it turned out that his humour stemmed from being on a mental knife-edge and he had a nervous break down after only one term. The next two teachers after him stirred absolutely no interest in me whatsoever, there's only a certain amount of praise one can heap on tables before feeling it's time to move on.

LOL! There's only so much time before 'mensis' becomes 'mens cease'. Sorry.

My last Latin teacher was excellent - very enthusiastic and thoroughly eccentric. He was also astonishingly accurate as a chalk-thrower!

Hmm, I obviously remmeber less Latin than I thought:

Mensa, Mensam, Mensas, Mensatis, Mensatis, Mensant

Is how I recall it (although remembering what each form of the noun is for is completely beyond me.) so I assume that Mensas should be Mensis.

I do remember a little poem making fantastic use of the language:

Amo, Amas, I met a lass,
Oh, she was xxx,
Amas, Amat, she lay down flat,
and I yyy.

where xxx and yyy had various increaingly lewd options.

I don't think that Amatis, Amatis or Amant ever got a look in, which is why I've probably remembered them wrongly.

I think eccentricity was a pre-requisite to becoming a Latin teacher, the only accurate chalk thrower we had at my school taught Geography.

Laudo Mensa! (or something along those lines).

Oh dear! D-minus!

Mensa, mensa, mensam, mensarum mensis mensis.
Nominative, Vocative, Accusative, Genetive, Ablative, Dative.

Amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant.
I love, you love, he loves, we love, you (plural) love, they love.

Now, tell me that isn't useful!

"People called 'Romans' - they go the house?"

Damn! If only someone had come up with smutty rhymes for the plurals of Latin verbs I might have gotten somewhere with the language.

What about this tense, whatever it may be? (I'd have to guess at past perfect).

Amerabo, Amerabis, Amerabit, Amerabimus, Amerabitus, Amerabunt...

Oh, forget it. There's obviously no hope of me learning the language at this late stage of my life. I don't even know enough about grammar (all the xxxxives mean nothing to me!). And obviously that Latin joke about houses was way over my head. Sorry.

Oo yeah - that's either future or pluperfect. Pluperfect, I think.

Personally, I like gerunds. I have absolutely no idea what they are, but they are mated to gerundives (as superbly portrayed by Ronald Searle in the 'Molesworth' books). I'm told it's a part of speech - something like "the second coming of the prophet Zarquon", where the word 'coming' would be the gerund. A noun-ised verb, or something. I forget.

Still, learn it, pass the exams, forget it. Isn't that what it was all about? Except, maybe, for the 'passing the exams' bit

*races through quickly to paste flashing sticker and plant huge rotating lights all over the thread*

Don't mind me gentlemen, go about your business....

Blimey Krissy, that's made the old place look a bit, um, different...

++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Main Entry: ger·und
Pronunciation: 'jer-&nd
Function: noun
Etymology: Late Latin gerundium, from Latin gerundus, gerundive of gerere to bear, carry on
Date: 1513
1 : a verbal noun in Latin that expresses generalized or uncompleted action
2 : any of several linguistic forms analogous to the Latin gerund in languages other than Latin; especially : the English verbal noun in -ing that has the function of a substantive and at the same time shows the verbal features of tense, voice, and capacity to take adverbial qualifiers and to govern objects
+++++++++++++++++++++++++

I'm none the wiser!

LOL! Now *there's* some clear writing!

So, I guess The Queen is not a gerund, because she only governs subjects.

I promise, that is the only gerund joke I will ever make!