<div dir="ltr"><h1 class="">Motto Engraved On New Moorestown Library Building Translates To ‘We Second Guess All’</h1>
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<em class="">October 7, 2014 9:32 AM</em>
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<h4 class="">Related Tags:</h4>
<span><a href="http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/tag/latin/">Latin</a>, <a href="http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/tag/library/">library</a>, <a href="http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/tag/moorestown/">Moorestown</a>, <a href="http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/tag/moorestown-township-library/">Moorestown Township Library</a>, <a href="http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/tag/motto/">Motto</a>, <a href="http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/tag/new-jersey/">New Jersey</a></span>
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</div><a class="" href="http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/newsletter/signup/">Sign Up</a></div></div><div class="" id="sessionm-button-widget"><div class=""><span class=""></span><strong>You've Earned Points for Reading!</strong><em>Claim points in our Reward Center, and earn more tomorrow.</em><a>Claim Points</a></div></div></div><p><em>MOORESTOWN, N.J. (CBS)</em> — A motto mistake has left one library in South Jersey scrambling to explain.</p>
<p>What they thought was inscribed on the <a style="font-weight:normal;font-size:100%;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;border:0px none transparent;padding:0px;background-color:transparent;background-image:none;display:inline" class="" href="http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2014/10/07/motto-engraved-on-new-moorestown-library-building-translates-to-we-second-guess-all/#" id="itxthook0" rel="nofollow"><span id="itxthook0p" class=""><span id="itxthook0w" class="" style="font-weight:normal;font-size:100%;text-decoration:underline!important;border-width:0px 0px 1px;border-style:none none solid;border-color:transparent transparent rgb(0,204,0);padding:0px 0px 1px!important;color:rgb(0,153,0);background-color:transparent">building</span><img class="" id="itxthook0icon" src="http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png" style="padding: 0px 0px 0px 4px ! important; margin: 0px ! important; vertical-align: baseline ! important;"></span></a>, wasn’t, and that led to a lot of red faces.</p>
<p>“Nos Secundus Coniecto Omnia”</p>
<p>It’s a powerful-sounding Latin statement that is fit for <a style="font-weight:normal;font-size:100%;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;border:0px none transparent;padding:0px;background-color:transparent;background-image:none;display:inline" class="" href="http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2014/10/07/motto-engraved-on-new-moorestown-library-building-translates-to-we-second-guess-all/#" id="itxthook1" rel="nofollow"><span id="itxthook1p" class=""><span id="itxthook1w" class="" style="font-weight:normal;font-size:100%;text-decoration:underline!important;border-width:0px 0px 1px;border-style:none none solid;border-color:transparent transparent rgb(0,204,0);padding:0px 0px 1px!important;color:rgb(0,153,0);background-color:transparent">higher learning</span><img class="" id="itxthook1icon" src="http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png" style="padding: 0px 0px 0px 4px ! important; margin: 0px ! important; vertical-align: baseline ! important;"></span></a>.</p>
<p>That is until you translate the expression.</p>
<p>Should Be: “We Confirm All Things Twice.”<br>
Translates To: “We Second Guess All.”</p>
<p>After nearly a decade of building the brand new multi-million dollar Moorestown Township Library, the <a style="font-weight:normal;font-size:100%;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;border:0px none transparent;padding:0px;background-color:transparent;background-image:none;display:inline" class="" href="http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2014/10/07/motto-engraved-on-new-moorestown-library-building-translates-to-we-second-guess-all/#" id="itxthook2" rel="nofollow"><span id="itxthook2p" class=""><span id="itxthook2w" class="" style="font-weight:normal;font-size:100%;text-decoration:underline!important;border-width:0px 0px 1px;border-style:none none solid;border-color:transparent transparent rgb(0,204,0);padding:0px 0px 1px!important;color:rgb(0,153,0);background-color:transparent">architect</span><img class="" id="itxthook2icon" src="http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png" style="padding: 0px 0px 0px 4px ! important; margin: 0px ! important; vertical-align: baseline ! important;"></span></a> and town leadership wanted a medallion on the walls to represent all that hard work.</p>
<p>They thought they came up with: “We Confirm Things Twice.”</p>
<p>But with that mantra, residents started doing a little Google translating and they came up with “We Second Guess All.”</p>
<p>Next to it, the date in Roman numerals says “1653” when it should say “1853,” when the Friends of the Library Group were formed.</p>
<p>Moorestown residents say their town is not about ignoring problems, but about confronting and fixing them.</p>
<p>And that’s exactly what the architect who designed the medallions said he going to do for free.</p>
<p>Architect Rick Ragan is in charge of the project. His firm isn’t solid on what the fix is, but he offered an option.</p>
<p>“We will pay to remove the entire medallion and reset a new one,” Ragan explained.</p>
<p>At Eyewitness News, we “confirm things twice” and contacted the <a style="font-weight:normal;font-size:100%;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;border:0px none transparent;padding:0px;background-color:transparent;background-image:none;display:inline" class="" href="http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2014/10/07/motto-engraved-on-new-moorestown-library-building-translates-to-we-second-guess-all/#" id="itxthook3" rel="nofollow"><span id="itxthook3p" class=""><span id="itxthook3w" class="" style="font-weight:normal;font-size:100%;text-decoration:underline!important;border-width:0px 0px 1px;border-style:none none solid;border-color:transparent transparent rgb(0,204,0);padding:0px 0px 1px!important;color:rgb(0,153,0);background-color:transparent">University</span><img class="" id="itxthook3icon" src="http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png" style="padding: 0px 0px 0px 4px ! important; margin: 0px ! important; vertical-align: baseline ! important;"></span></a> of Pennsylvania’s foremost authority on the language who added another wrinkle, saying quote:</p>
<p>“It’s not real Latin, but a kind of pseudo-Latin called “dog Latin”
in which you just translate each individual English word into a Latin
equivalent, without worrying whether the result makes sense or not,”
said Joseph Farrell, <a style="font-weight:normal;font-size:100%;font-style:normal;text-decoration:none;border:0px none transparent;padding:0px;background-color:transparent;background-image:none;display:inline" class="" href="http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2014/10/07/motto-engraved-on-new-moorestown-library-building-translates-to-we-second-guess-all/#" id="itxthook4" rel="nofollow"><span id="itxthook4p" class=""><span id="itxthook4w" class="" style="font-weight:normal;font-size:100%;text-decoration:underline!important;border-width:0px 0px 1px;border-style:none none solid;border-color:transparent transparent rgb(0,204,0);padding:0px 0px 1px!important;color:rgb(0,153,0);background-color:transparent">professor</span><img class="" id="itxthook4icon" src="http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png" style="padding: 0px 0px 0px 4px ! important; margin: 0px ! important; vertical-align: baseline ! important;"></span></a> of classical studies at UPenn.</p>
<p>The bottom line: good intentions lost in translation.</p><p><a href="http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2014/10/07/motto-engraved-on-new-moorestown-library-building-translates-to-we-second-guess-all/">http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2014/10/07/motto-engraved-on-new-moorestown-library-building-translates-to-we-second-guess-all/</a><br></p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------
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