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

[Eric Nielsen]

It doesn't parse muster.

Eric

On Sun, May 20, 2012 at 11:09 PM, Neal Whitman <nwhitman at ameritech.net>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Neal Whitman <nwhitman at AMERITECH.NET>
> Subject:      Re: "Don't let the bastards get you down!" 1945
>
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>
> 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
>
>
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> > 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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