Wednesday, July 9, 2003

Fun little conincidence
This morning during Katherine's Latin lesson, we came across this pair of sentences:
Num Creta oppidum est? Creta oppidum non est!
Is Crete a town? Crete is not a town!

Then this afternoon, while reading Dorothy Sayers' Gaudy Night I came across this passage: "He renewed his offer of marriage on an average once in three months.... One First of April, the question had arrived from Paris in a single Latin sentence, starting off dispiritedly. 'Num...?' -a particle which notoriously 'expects the answer No.' Harriet rummaging the Grammar book for 'polite negatives,' replied, still more briefly, 'Benigne.' "

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