Latin Helps Us All the Time

Grant Williams

Latin in the Modern USA

In an almost ironic twist, the Latin class has helped me through so much. I was in sixth grade, and the Spanish teacher thoroughly ignored my accomodations, even after multiple meetings with the learning specialist. Then the Latin preview came around. I saw students whose interests aligned with mine, and so I said "It cannot be any worse than this." I would now describe it as a "Caesar at the Rubicon" scenario.



1. NCIS
In one of my favorite shows, NCIS, the main character, Agent Gibbs, is a former marine. He meets many other marines in the process of countless investigations. When he meets somebody who he thinks is a marine he'll say "Semper fidelis", which translates as "Always faithful". If they are a marine, they'll typically reply "Hoorah". Latin helps decipher some of the military jargon in that show.


2. DC
In the Nation's capital, there is Latin everywhere. There might as well be a hidden Rome. On the monuments, there are no Base 10 numbers (Arabic number system). They only carve Roman numerals into the eternal tributes. When I went to the Lincoln Memorial over Thanksgiving break, the founding dates of all the states are inscribed in massive font around the top of the monument. Although I could not read them, I knew how to read the last few digits. And then there's the Senate.


3. US Space Force Logo
In the US Space Force logo, which admittedly looks like somebody liked the Starfleet logo, there are Roman numerals signifying the founding date of the organization, MMXIX. I saw this while browsing twitter, and I couldn't stop laughing that somebody had the gall to put numbers under the Starfleet logo and call it the sixth branch of the US military.

4. Matilda Song
In the Upper School musical, Matilda, there is a song ominously titled "The Hammer". In it, there is mildly real Latin. It reads "BAMBINATUM EST MAGITUM, CIRCULUM EST DEUM". Which translates, confusingly, to "Children are maggots*, and Circle is god." I was confused by these lyrics, with only the second bit being real Latin.

*Not real Latin. I thought magitum was a form of "magister". A real translation would be "Liberi sunt vermiculos". However, magitum sounds like maggots, so they chose that. The second one is real Latin.

5. Te Pesce Verbero

My friends all take Latin, so our motto is Te Pesce Verbero. It translates as "I beat you with a fish." This strange call to arms came about in 7th grade Latin class, when we had studied a unit that had "beat" as one of the main verbs. We then began to force the Spanish students to learn the superior language, regardless of whether they wanted to or not.