University Challenge

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I don't know about Durham, but aren't what used to be constituent colleges of London University now universities in their own right?

I'm out of touch on this one. The University of Wales split up in the 1990s.

Edit: this would suggest not: http://www.london.ac.uk/colleges_institutes.html (My daughter went to the Paris Institute.)

[ardcarp]

Are you sure your HM wasn't responsible for one of its revisions, of which there were many?

Quite possible. 'Twas all a long time ago. I vaguely remember we all had to wear short trousers until the end of the third form!

[Don Petter]

You were a defacer too, huh?

Sir! Sir! Please sir it was the others, sir!


Strangely (and I only realised this in later life), because of the layout of

mensa
mensam
mensae
mensae
mensa
mensa

I assumed 'mensa' meant 'table' in the sense of word grid, and never associated it with the kitchen item.

(Even so, I did manage to scrape a 5 at O level!)

[Don Petter]

All the latin I was ever taught seemed to concern military matters. I often wondered how they used to do things like buy a loaf of bread.....

Bloody Cotta and his cohorts, always coming over the hill ...

[MrGongGong]

[vinteuil]

French may have been Whitmarsh..

.

Gildersleeve and Lodge. North and Hillard. Bradley's Arnold, revised Mountford...how could I ever forget those names?

... o, a Proustian shiver there!

Ronald Ridout, anyone?

And the monuments of Liddell & Scott, Lewis & Short, useful for hiding behind....

[greenilex]

I have in my hand a tiny dictionary publ. Eyre and Spottiswoode and revised 1955. Seems to be without "imprimatur".
I pinched it from my convent schoolfriend around that year. It gives the Catholic pronunciation of Latin at the front, and says "the old pronunciation, whose use is nowadays largely confined to..legal phrases, is like English."

[jean]

Which it is, in a way. We've had several discussions on this over the years. I have several times posted the limerick involving the Widow O'Riley (Google it if you don't remember).

Your dictionary presumable predates the 'Reformed Classical' pronunciation.

[french frank]

Ours was called Pseudolus noster. We also had Marchant & Watson and Bradley's Arnold (they are both two feet away from me now). In our first lesson the Direct Method was attempted: Haec est ianuaaaaa. [Pamela opens door] Pamelaaaa ianuammmm aperit. I seem to think it was soon abandoned (classful of pupils all looking at each other to see if anyone understood what was going on).

[greenilex]

Useful nevertheless when one gets to "dormire ".

[mercia]

I'm trying to think of any modern word that has derived from mensa

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Sir! Sir! Please sir it was the others, sir!


Strangely (and I only realised this in later life), because of the layout of

mensa
mensam
mensae
mensae
mensa
mensa

Your vocative seems to have slipped.

[Don Petter]

Your vocative seems to have slipped.

Ingrained though it might have been, after 57 years I couldn't actually remember the proper sequence.

I therefore quoted from WikiBooks 'Latin - Introduction to Nouns':

http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Latin/Introduction_to_Nouns_(L1)

I now see that while giving the vocative in the main table as 'mensa', in the next table (vs puella) it is 'mensam'. I assume you would prefer the latter?

Moral - Never trust Wiki.

[jean]

I now see that while giving the vocative in the main table as 'mensa', in the next table (vs puella) it is 'mensam'. I assume you would prefer the latter?

Moral - Never trust Wiki.

No, but it's the second example that's wrong - the vocative is mensa, wherever you put it, and mensam is the accusative.

There is no absolutely definitive order for lising the cases of a Latin noun. EA expected the order he was familiar with, and reprimanded you for putting the vocative at the end. This has become more common, probably since the vocative isn't used that often (especially when we're referring to tables and is nearly always the same as the nominative.

It's probably an indication of how little anyone cares about Latin that nobody's jumed in to correct wiki's mistake. I suppose I ought to...

[Flosshilde]

I'm trying to think of any modern word that has derived from mensa

I can think of a word that is similar, relating to the onset of womanhood, but I doubt that there is any connection.