Talk:Latin/Lesson 9-Poem

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The first known appearance of this poem was inscribed inside the cover of my mother Winifred Lenore "Winnie" Robertson Parkerson's (b. 1915) Latin text at Longview High School; Longview, TX; early part of twentieth centry, as she reported same to me. Ever since that time it has been inscribed inside the cover of high-school Latin texts by some students, as was done by me during my two years of Latin I and Latin II at Nacogdoches High School; Nacogdoches, TX (late 1950's).

Also, inspired by this little poem, I wrote the following one:

"True Penance"

Latin is a language

As hard as it can be.

You can speak it to your neighbor,

You can speak it to a tree.

Neither will understand you,

No, not in the least;

That is, unless your neighbor

Is a Roman Catholic priest.

Then you can tell him, MEA CULPA, MEA CULPA, MEA CULPA!:

That Latin confessional sen'ence;

And he'll tell you go and sin no more

And read Latin as your penance.

-by Hardy Parkerson, Atty.; Lake Charles, Louisiana.


 * The poem also appears in a number of other places; Google Books finds a citation in a 1905 classical journal but no doubt it's older than that. Marnanel 18:48, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreement of the adjective "arida"
Most of the translations say "dry pumice" but I can't figure out how the adjective arida is in agreement with a third declension noun. The verb is dono for I give and the object given is a book which is a neuter noun - arida can take the accusative plural case or the nominative/vocative plural case as a neuter adjective. So I keep reading this as the "dry book". Unless I'm missing something I can't see how arida agrees with the ablative singular case of pumex.

I did think maybe the verb participle took the adjective - so "polished dry with pumice stone".

I just thought I'd leave a note here in case anyone can explain why the majority of sites giving an English translations of "ad Cornelium" by Catullus always give "dry pumice stone"

Sluffs (discuss • contribs) 22:56, 12 August 2016 (UTC)