Check out today’s Teatime Titbit: “10 Latinisms for your English correspondence”
Maybe you remember that line in the classic Monty Python film “Life of Brian” – “What have the Romans ever done for us?”.
In actual fact, they did a hell of a lot for many European languages, including the English language, and some Latinisms even stayed and are commonly used every day, particularly in written English.
Here’s my top 10 …
ad hoc – formed or done for a particular purpose only “It is an ad hoc meeting to deal with the problem of ..”
a.m. – ante meridiem, before noon
e.g. – exempli gratia, for example
etc. – et cetera, ‚and so forth‘
i.e. – id est, ‘that means’ “the basic essentials of life, i.e. housing, food etc.”
N.B. – nota bene, ‘note well’ “N.B. The office will be closed from 1 July”
p.a. – per annum, ‘for each year’ “a gross salary of €80 000 p.a.”
p.m. – post meridiem, afternoon
P.S. – post scriptum, postscript
vice versa – ‘the other way round’
The Merriam-Webster has compiled a great list of 10 Latin phrases, which appear in English lock, stock, and barrel. Great for your next pub quiz:
http://www.merriam-webster.com/top-ten-lists/top-10-latin-words-to-live-by/amor-vincit-omnia.html
line (Textzeile), gross salary (Bruttolohn), lock, stock, and barrel (ganz und gar)