University Challenge

[Mary Chambers]

"assertion" ?

I was merely picking up on folks talking about 'classics'.

Perhaps I used the wrong word - but you seemed to be implying that questions on Latin and Greek favoured people from public schools. I am trying to point out that there were no questions in the final that demanded a specialised knowledge of either. The questions were about history, various sciences, language, art, music, philosophy, literature, all of which seem to me to be perfectly reasonable subjects for university students from any background.

Nobody has yet answered my question about what sort of subjects would be suitable, if these are not, for the UC teams of today. Sport, film, 'popular' music? They've all been covered in earlier rounds.

[MrGongGong]

That question was a good example of one that appeared to be about Latin, but in fact could be answered by anyone who knew that the organisation for people with high IQs, which was also mentioned, was called Mensa.

Mental
Egoism
Never
Solved
Anything


or as Cage would put it


looking to the Mountains
butterfliEs wings
sleeping on the traiN
look, there's a dogfiSh
better Ask someone who knows

Perhaps I used the wrong word - but you seemed to be implying that questions on Latin and Greek favoured people from public schools.

They do
which is not to say there shouldn't be any
or that Latin and Greek shouldn't be taught in any school

[french frank]

(I've no idea where the Spanish meaning comes from - has anyone?)

Discussion here doesn't answer the question! It had to be a stupid or silly woman because the equivalent for a man would be menso. In standard Spanish, Latin mensa > mesa. So the Mex. Spanish would appear to be a quite different word, whereas the 'Latin paradigm', university canteen and the organisation for egg-heads are all the same word = table.

The Real Academia Española has it as colloquial in S. and C. America ('‖ falto de entendimiento o razón').

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I suppose if they'd said 'the Latin for table' it would have been far too easy,

Only for those who had learnt the Language using The Approach to Latin Book 1.

[Don Petter]

Only for those who had learnt the Language using The Approach to Latin Book 1.

I remember it as Kennedy's Eating Primer?

[Nick Armstrong]

I remember it as Kennedy's Eating Primer?

You were a defacer too, huh?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I remember it as Kennedy's Eating Primer?

Oh yes. I remember.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Only for those who had learnt the Language using The Approach to Latin Book 1.

There was a more "modern" version: The NEW Approach to Latin. "Amo" and "mensa" were dumped, so you didn't begin by loving a table. Instead, you learnt to praise a girl.

They shoved all the grammar to the back of the book, so you had to learn it without understanding it.

[ardcarp]

I'm guilty too, but our HM, an Oxford classicist, wrote his own book which was used throughout the school. His

SHORTER
LATIN
PRIMER

was not particularly affectionately known as

SHORTBREAD
EATING
PRIMER

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

We do seem to be an immature lot.

[jean]

There was a more "modern" version: The NEW Approach to Latin. "Amo" and "mensa" were dumped...

But not before this splendid piece was penned:

When the last sound of my mother's departing wheels had died away, the Headmaster invited me to hand over any money I had in my possession. I produced my three half-crowns, which were duly entered in a book, and I was told that, from time to time there would be a "shop" at the school with all sorts of things which one would like to have, and that I could choose what I liked up to the limit of the seven and sixpence. Then we quitted the Headmaster's parlour and the comfortable private side of the house and entered the more bleak apartments reserved for the instruction and accommodation of the pupils. I was taken into a Form Room and told to sit at a desk. All the other boys were out of doors, and I was alone with the Form Master. He produced a thin greeny-brown covered book filled with words in different types of print.

"You have never done any Latin before, have you?" he said.

" No, sir."

"This is a Latin grammar." He opened it at a well-thumbed page. " You must learn this," he said, pointing to a number of words in a frame of lines. " I will come back in half an hour and see what you know."

Behold me then on a gloomy evening, with an aching heart, seated in front of the First Declension.

Mensa - a table
Mensa - O table
Mensam - a table
Mensae - of a table
Mensae - to or for a table
Mensa - by, with or from a table

What on earth did it mean? Where was the sense in it? It seemed absolute rigmarole to me. However, there was one thing I could always do: I could learn by heart. And I thereupon proceeded, as far as my private sorrows would allow, to memorize the acrostic-looking task which had been set me.

In due course the Master returned.

"Have you learnt it?" he asked.

"I think I can say it, sir," I replied; and I gabbled it off.

He seemed so satisfied with this that I was emboldened to ask a question.

"What does it mean, sir?"

"It means what it says. Mensa, a table. Mensa is a noun of the First Declension. There are five declensions. You have learnt the singular of the First Declension."

"But," I repeated," what does it mean?"

"Mensa means a table," he answered.

"Then why does mensa also mean O table," I enquired, "and what does O table mean?"

"Mensa, O table, is the vocative case," he replied.

"But why O table?" I persisted in genuine curiosity.

"O table – you would use that in addressing a table, in invoking a table." And then seeing he was not carrying me with him, "You would use it in speaking to a table."

"But I never do," I blurted out in honest amazement.

"If you are impertinent, you will be punished, and punished, let me tell you, very severely," was his conclusive rejoinder.

Such was my first introduction to the classics from which, I have been told, many of our cleverest men have derived so much solace and profit.

[Nick Armstrong]

you didn't begin by loving a table

Malo, malo, malo I would rather be
malo, malo, malo in an apple tree
malo, malo, malo than a naughty boy
malo, malo, malo in adversity.


.

....

Such was my first introduction to the classics from which, I have been told, many of our cleverest men have derived so much solace and profit.

That's wonderful, jean!

[jean]

You know who it is, don't you?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

You know who it is, don't you?

Went to Harrow, I believe (but was never on UC)?

[jean]

Correct. (I don't think there was a UC back then. Not even a Top of the Form.)

The extract is often cited as proof of the uselessness of Latin, but it isn't, really.