Wednesday, January 13, 2010

One word, four principal parts.

Playing charades in Latin class in order to study for a test presents with some difficulties, the first of which being that Latin is an ancient, ancient language. My friend and I were studying the other day, by acting out the vocabulary words in our textbook. That specific chapter had very few easily demonstrable words. Genus, generis, n., or origin, was particularly tricky. My friend mimed a baby, crawling around. "puella?" I guessed, incorrectly. Then she mimed the big bang, to which I gleefully said, "deleo, delere, delevi, deletum," to destroy. When I was at a loss, she pretended to be god, and flung her arms in the air as if to create life.

Another tough one was fluo, fluere, fluxi, fluxum, to flow. The only thing I could think of on the spot was menstruation, which I proceeded to demonstrate by falling to the ground in faux-pain, clutching my abdominal region.

When my male friend joined in the game, the first word he chose, "Ingens, Ingentis," meaning huge, caused him to point frantically towards his crotch. Parvus, a, um, or small, was my initial reaction, but I chose, logically, not to say anything.

I think the best, though, was hostis, hostis, hostium, or the enemy, which my friend, who has been known to make explosion noises followed by frantic "meows" on the phone when she's bored, gleefully interpreted with menacing facial expressions and a makeshift sword, proceeding to stab me in the heart.

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