Seen on the street in Kyiv.

Words of Advice:

"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne

“The Mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” -- The TOFF *

"Foreign Relations Boil Down to Two Things: Talking With People or Killing Them." -- Unknown

“Speed is a poor substitute for accuracy.” -- Real, no-shit, fortune from a fortune cookie

"Thou Shalt Get Sidetracked by Bullshit, Every Goddamned Time." -- The Ghoul

"If you believe that you are talking to G-d, you can justify anything.” — my Dad

"Colt .45s; putting bad guys in the ground since 1873." -- Unknown

"Stay Strapped or Get Clapped." -- probably not Mr. Rogers

"The Dildo of Karma rarely comes lubed." -- Unknown

"Eck!" -- George the Cat

* "TOFF" = Treasonous Orange Fat Fuck,
"FOFF" = Felonious Old Fat Fuck,
"COFF" = Convicted Old Felonious Fool,
A/K/A Commandante (or Cadet) Bone Spurs,
A/K/A El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago, A/K/A the Asset,
A/K/A P01135809, A/K/A Dementia Donnie, A/K/A Felon^34,
A/K/A Dolt-45, A/K/A Don Snoreleone

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Latin Is Dead, It's Plain to See

But it is one of the most popular languages taught in schools, only French, Spanish and German are more popular.

Really. We are involved in a lengthy war in the Middle East and China is a serious economic power and a growing military power; you'd think there would be a serious demand for Arabic and Mandarin. (Other than the point that they are among the two hardest languages in the world to learn, that is.)

In reading the article, Latin sounds more like a cult of language. I'll bet that you can learn a lot about grammar by studying any foreign language. Why pick a language that is not in common use anywhere on the planet, other than academia? Except for the fine distinction that nobody really knows how to pronounce the words, you might as well study Egyptian as study Latin. Sure you can read Virgil in the original if you study Latin, but you can also read Gilgamesh in the original if you study Sumerian.

2 comments:

deadstick said...

Latin is a language,
Dead as dead can be.
First it killed the Romans,
And now it’s killing me...

Fixer said...

Once again, my mother gets smarter as I get older. She always bugged me to learn Latin and I always balked. At least I can count in Latin, but that's the most useless part of the language.