IS LATIN NECESSARY?

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 12 November 1927, Page 4

IS LATIN NECESSARY?

(To tlio Editor)

Sir, —The expulsion of . lafcin from schools is responsible for. not- a flaw connjiou mistakes iin English. This morning a small Dawmist leaflet pushed, under the door ignorantly declared that certain inhabitants "are non eet-,” which means "are is not.” The phrase “non est inventus” is often similarly misused, and a lady teacher once distinguished girls having the same surname by the words ‘'primus,” "secundus,” etc. Several times .recently I have conic across the words “Infirmioribus succurendo fortior,” which, whatever they are intended to mean, seem unnecessaril” if not nonsensically, to toll us that a man is stronger than weaker men (or possibly than himself) by helping the weaker men. A third .nstance may be noted in a. recent contribution to vour columns on the Bristol Channel case. There both printer and translator are evidently wrong. There is no such word as ‘ and even if the legal rule referred to is properly to be quoted as "inter fauces terrae, ’ the translation .given "the lands, within the jaws,” is not what is wanted, for there aire no lands within the jaws of the Bristol Channel, except a small island, which cannot have been the scene of the reported collision. It was the extent of the territoriality of the sea within the jaws of the Bristol Channel that was in question—whether three or 10J miles or_ more. The dictionary of law jargon would have done better to have given as its translation "between the- jaws of the land-” It may be mentioned that there has sprung up a tendency amongst those who are no longer taught the old Latin roots to debase honourable English words derived from the Latin- into disreputable meaning, and so to force the true meaning of t.ho words out of use. Yours, etc., CAYIS.