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Re: Latin pronounciation

From:John Cowan <jcowan@...>
Date:Friday, October 20, 2000, 15:46
Mangiat wrote:

> But the most interesting thing was the 'pronounciation' adopted by low > social classes (not educated, they obviously didn't know Latin.). They > butchered so much the Latin Lang they didn't know, that it became impossible > to understand, and sometimes really ridiculous.
The English word "mumpsimus" means something known to be incorrect, but retained as a matter of tradition. The story goes that an old English priest, owing to a defect in his office-book, had for fifty years been saying "quod in ore mumpsimus" (for "sumpsimus"), on being corrected retorted "I will not change my old mumpsimus for your new sumpsimus". OTOH, the Church held that, because baptism is *ex opere operato* (effective because of what is done, not because of the mental state of the doer), all baptisms "in nomine patria, et filia, et spirita sancta, Amen" (shockingly ungrammatical solecistical Latin for "Country and Daughter and Holy Spiritess in name", more or less) were invalid. -- There is / one art || John Cowan <jcowan@...> no more / no less || http://www.reutershealth.com to do / all things || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan with art- / lessness \\ -- Piet Hein