Re: Classic, Normal, and Vulgar Lingo

At 10:32 pm -0500 22/1/00, John Cowan wrote:
>Raymond Brown scripsit:
>
>> I have no doubt at all that Caesar had an excellent commond of Vulgar Latin
>> - you don't get the sort of loyalty from your troops that Caesar commanded
>> unless you can communicate with your troops!  But he was also no mean
>> writer of the Classical language.
>
>        "Caesar?" the man laughed.  "Why, everyone knows *he*
>        couldn't write!  They use his works to teach Latin to
>        barbarians."
>
>                -- L. Sprague DeCamp, _Lest Darkness Fall_ (6th century)
Yes, I remember in my late teens being told by a prescriptivist that Caesar
did not write such good Latin as Cicero did, and thinking even then what a
lot of twaddle it was even then.

I guess DeCamp considered Cicero's "Golden Latin" too precious to be
sullied by barbarians   :)

Ray

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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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