*sighs* Much though I loathe to admit it...

I'm going to have to wait to do Semester at Sea *points to earlier post*

While my GPA is good enough overall, certain individual grades are not. I really will need to get at least one more semester in, possibly two before I'll think I have a decent chance at that. *le sigh*

So, Jenn, go ahead and bookmark that Greek Institute for this summer... that should look good on the application, right? And we know it'll be available, unlike the Spanish, which is just guesswork.

*frowns again* I guess I'll also end up putting off Americorps by a year... there's no point taking ONE SEMESTER of Spanish before a big pause like that. *grumbles slightly* I hate rescheduling. It's evil.

A bit of very obscure humor....

At night, I am haunted by dreams of the dreaded Passive Periphrastic (cue dramatic music)

Yes, the Passive Periphrastic, together with its minion in evil, the Dative of Personal Agent goes daily to torment innocent Latin students such as myself. Wait, you say? The Dative of Personal Agent? That's right. The DATIVE. Normally, the dative is content to sit back and let the Ablative express the idea of Personal Agent, a task to which the changeable Ablative is quite suited... but when the Passive Periphrastic appears, our normal mild mannered Dative turns into a demon... from.... hades.....

The Passive Periphrastic is very dangerous, and will pop up where you least expect it. Hiding as a simpleminded gerundive + sum, it will appear simply to convey a sense of duty, obligation, or necessity. We wait, dreading the syntax question... the question "what is the tense of verb?" which will, when correctly answered, turn our well written translations into nothing but grammatical mush. One cannot merely convey a sense of duty, obligation, or necessity by using the simple verb debeo, debere, oh no. One must employ... the Passive Periphrastic, not knowing that each use of the dreaded Passive Periphrastic with the Dative of Personal Agent brings the user one step closer... to hades.

Do you see? Do you understand? Do you feel my nervous breakdown?

All the fault... of the Passive Periphrastic. Fear it.




_________

<sub>Understanding the joke:

The passive periphrastic is a form of the verb which, as I've said, is used to convey a sense of duty, obligation, or necessity. It is distressingly common, and, even more upsettingly, I often get it wrong and translate it as something else. So does everyone. Last time we had a passive periphrastic, before Professor Dunkle could get us all reciting "duty, obligation, or necessity" like the good little parrots we are, I said "that thing haunts me in my sleep". The line stuck with me, and I decided to write a silly little entry concerning it. Sorry, duckies. I promise, less Latin, more English.</sub>

This took me completely by surprise...

But it's a happy surprise!

Maybe the US can finally join the rest of the civilised world! *dances sillily*

Now, can somebody explain why the folks over at the yahoo messageboards (the link I was first sent to) are flipping out? Okay, part of that is that the place clearly spawns republican scum (not to be confused with ordinary republicans, these people think "expletive expletive profanity you illegitimate son of a female dog" is a coherant argument....), but... why does it matter? I've never understood why other people care?


And let's get this straight. Despite what some sillies think, this will not increase attacks by fundamentalist muslim groups. Fact is, those groups didn't attack us physically or verbally because of our SEXUAL morality, they did that because they feel we treat them unfairly. At least, that's the direction to which all the evidence points.

Oh, by the way...

Here's the translation of the passage I read... or, at least, what I recall of the translation:

_{Quid? cum te Praeneste Kalendis ipsis Novembribus occupaturum nocturno impetu esse confideres, sensistine illam coloniam meo iussu meis praesidiis, custodiis, vigiliis esse munitam? Nihil agis, nihil moliris, nihil cogitas, quod non ego non modo audiam, sed etiam videam planeque sentiam. Recognosce tandem mecum noctem illam superiorem; iam intelleges multo me vigilare acrius ad salutem quam te ad perniciem rei publicae. Dico te priore nocte venisse inter falcarios (non agam obscure) in M. Laecae domum; convenisse eodem complures eiusdem amentiae scelerisque socios. Num negare audes? quid taces? Convincam, si negas. Video enim esse hic in senatu quosdam, qui tecum una fuerunt. [9] O di inmortales! ubinam gentium sumus? in qua urbe vivimus? quam rem publicam habemus? Hic, hic sunt in nostro numero, patres conscripti, in hoc orbis terrae sanctissimo gravissimoque consilio, qui de nostro omnium interitu, qui de huius urbis atque adeo de orbis terrarum exitio cogitent! Hos ego video consul et de re publica sententiam rogo et, quos ferro trucidari oportebat, eos nondum voce volnero! Fuisti igitur apud Laecam illa nocte, Catilina, distribuisti partes Italiae...}

What? When you trusted that you could take Praeneste in the night this very Kalends of November, did you think that colony would be fortified by my guards (prasidiis), guardians (custodiis), and watchmen (vigiliis)? You do nothing, you attempt nothing, you think of nothing that I do not hear, see, and plainly perceive. Now review with me the night before last, I think more to the health of the republic than you do to its destruction. I said to you that night going down the street of the Falcarios (I will not be vague with you) to the house of Marci Laecae; (something else). You don't dare to deny it, do you? Why are you silent? If you deny it, I will convince you. I see truly there are certain men in the senate, who were with you. O, immortal gods! Where in the world do we have our country? In what city do we live? What sort of republic do we have? Here, here in our number, senators, in this most sacred and grave council of the world, are those who think of the destruction of all of us, who think of the destruction of this city, who think of the destruction of the whole world! I the consul see this, and I ask the feelings of the republic, [he ought to have been offered slaughter by the sword (not sure)], and I have not even wounded him with my voice! You were therefore at the house of Laecae that night, Cataline, and you distributed parts of Italy....


Well, that's as far as we got so far. *shrugs*

It's happened....

Someone else... whom I don't know... said *noddles*. Okay, this was somebody from neopets, so I can only assume that somehow the word has spread through the neopian community... but nobody I know from neo!

Now all I need is gigglesnorts to become common parlance, and I shall rule the world!


Unless I'm not the one who neologised the use of noddles, in which case, kindly ignore this post.