"Don't let the bastards get you down!" 1945

[Neal Whitman]

You're right. It's not funny, because it's bogus Latin. If it had been real
Latin, like Henry Beard's Latin for All Occasions, it would have been funny.
If it had been the "Romanes eunt domus" part of Monty Python's Life of
Brian, it would have been funny, because "Romani ite domum" really is what
it would have been in classical Latin. But this grasping "Illegitimi non
carborundum" phonus balonus (more bogus Latin, via P.G. Wodehouse) is not
funny.

Neal

----- Original Message -----
From: "Wilson Gray" <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, May 20, 2012 9:45 PM
Subject: Re: "Don't let the bastards get you down!" 1945


> ---------------------- Information from the mail
> header -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Don't let the bastards get you down!" 1945
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Sun, May 20, 2012 at 11:07 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
> wrote:
>> "ILLIGITIMI NON CARBORUNDUM"
>
> I haven't seen it written down, before. But, it's been repeated to me
> a million times. The first 999,999 times, I just didn't get it.
>
> What? How does it mean that? "Carborundum" is a brand-name. _Non_ is
> certainly a negative, but does _illigitimi_ really mean "bastards"?
> I'm not sure. And there's nothing in the string that means "grind."
> Besides, I didn't know that you had taken Latin! Was it in high school
> or in college? Wait. You didn't go to college, right? Let me hear it
> again.
>
> Even after I caught on that it was supposed to be a joke, it still
> didn't strike me as funny.
>
> --
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
> to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
>
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