Latin in English

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Latin in English
By Phil Baldi, Pennsylvania State University

How often have you heard the term \"M-O\" on your favorite police show? Have any idea what it means? It's a Latin phrase which has been standardized in law enforcement language which is short for \"modus operandi\", in English 'way of operating.' There are countless Latin phrases like this which are used in everyday English, often by people who know nothing of Latin, and may not even know that they are using Latin words or phrases.

Think about it; nearly everyone has an \"alma mater\". Do you know what it means? It's your 'nurturing mother'. Who has ever heard the lawyers on a TV show talk about a writ of \"habeas corpus\" (you may have the body)? This writ is used to demand evidence that a crime has been committed. Continuing in the legal vein, how about \"prima facie\" (at first view) evidence, the opposite of which is \"circumstantial\"? Do you know anyone who is \"persona non grata\" (an unworthy, unwelcome person)?

In the non-legal domain, have you or someone you know ever uttered a \"non sequitur\" (it doesn't follow)? Everyone hopes someday to produce a \"magnum opus\" (great work). Have you ever noticed the logo under the growling Metro Goldwyn Mayer lion at the theater: \"ars gratia artis\", it roars, 'art for art's sake.' Did Julius Caesar actually say \"veni, vidi, vici\" (I came, I saw, I conquered)? Maybe, but he never wrote it. It's attributed to him by the Roman historian Suetonius (died 160 CE).

Have you ever been cautioned with the phrase \"caveat emptor\" (let the buyer beware)? How many times have you been urged to get on with things because \"tempus fugit\" (time flies)? And finally, how many who saw Robin Williams in \"Dead Poet's Society\" thought that the phrase \"carpe diem\" was a Williams original, when in fact it's from the eleventh ode of the Roman poet Horace (died 8 BCE), meaning 'seize the day?'

There are so many Latin words in English that it is no exaggeration to say that English has a special place in its word-formation rules for words which preserve their original Latin form. I am not just talking about words which have been borrowed and reshaped along English lines, but words which have been imported from Latin complete with their Latin patterns.

Many of these are passively, or vaguely, familiar to English speakers who know nothing of Latin word-formation, but are forced nonetheless to generate Latin forms on occasion. Take \"alumnus\", for example. An \"alumnus\" in Latin is a foster son, a pupil, but in English its meaning is pretty much restricted to 'a graduate'. The word \"alumnus\" is etymologically 'someone who has been nourished by an institution' . If you compare the term \"ALMA mater\" (nourishing mother), which contains the same root in a slightly different form, without the \"u\", you will recognize the Latin root \"al-\", which means 'nourish'.

Note the end part of the word \"alumnus\", \"-us\". This indicates that it's a male pupil (Latin marked gender on nouns, unlike English, which only marks gender on the pronouns \"he\", \"she\", and \"it\"). What's the plural of \"alumnus\"? The plural of \"alumnus\" is \"alumni\", and it refers not only to male graduates, but to ALL graduates, taken collectively, as in \"the alumni society\". So what's an \"alumna\"? An \"alumna\" is a specifically female graduate, and when there's more than one of them, they're called \"alumnae\".

Pronunciations of \"alumni\" and \"alumnae\" vary widely. The standard ENGLISH pronunciation of the two are \"alumn-eye\" for \"alumni\" and \"alumn-ay\" for \"alumnae\", though that's not how they were pronounced in Latin. These are among the few word pairs from Latin that exist in gender contrast with each other (sort of along the lines of \"aviator\"/\"aviatrix\"), though there are numerous other Latin singular-plural pairs in English which we'll discuss in another installment.