Passion in Parentheses

Prima facie (1), as we once used to say, most of the daily diaries for 2005 now thronging stationers' shelves offer much the same kind of service, allotting space for each day from Saturday January 1 through to Saturday December 31. There are probably pages for notes and others for addresses and telephone numbers, supplemented in especially modern productions by terms to be used in text messages, eg (2) 2MORO meaning "tomorrow", or CID for "consider it done".

All but the very basic will also have collections of handy information: international telephone dialling codes; tables for converting feet into metres and quarts into litres; charts that purport to show which vintages of Haut-Médoc and St Emilion are gloriously drinkable and which are mere slurp; which days are national holidays in Austria and Azerbaijan; maps of the world (if you're lucky); and maps of the London underground, et cetera (3), et cetera. But very few, apart from the one from Castelli that I now have in front of me, can offer that sine qua non (4) of civilised existence in 2005 AD (5): a table of Latin terms in common usage.

There was a time when serious people, serious politicians especially, would drop Greek and Latin expressions into their discourse in extenso (6), ad infinitum (7) and even ad nauseam (8). As we may see for ourselves in verbatim (9) accounts of Commons proceedings, the grand old man - viz, or videlicet (10), the great Liberal leader Gladstone - would not hesitate to illuminate some point he was making ad hoc (11) by quoting seriatim (12) Aristophanes, Aristotle or whoever had just floated into his mind, sometimes citing weighty and hallowed pronouncements these sages had made ex cathedra (13), and sometimes their mere ad lib (14) obiter dicta (15).

So many in the narrow confines of politics then could call on a classical education that opponents never appealed to the Speaker against him on the grounds that this kind of behaviour was somehow in parliamentary terms ultra vires (16). What might seem to us like indefensibly high-flown oratorical practice was then accepted nem con (17). It was almost as if statesmen were required ex officio (18) to demonstrate this kind of accomplishment. Liberal would hurl Latin tags at Tory, and vice versa (19). Indeed, any failure to do so might cast doubt on their bona fides (20), or might even be seen de facto (21), if not quite de jure (22), as a case of caveat emptor (23).

That's no longer, to put it mildly, the status quo (24). Here in the 21st century, indulgence in Latin allusions in a political speech would nowadays be recognised ex post facto (25) as a suitable case for responding: "You what?" True, eager though modernising lawyers are to stamp them out, these practices persist in the world of the law, from the inbred, sub rosa (26) language of courtroom procedures - adjourned sine die (27), ex parte (28) et al (29) - through to the kind of everyday phrase that pops up in TV dramas or even in kerbside vox pops (30) on the news: habeas corpus (31), for instance, or alibi (32).

Elsewhere, ipso facto (33), most people's modus operandi (34) in today's carpe diem (35) society precludes, ceteris paribus (36), arcane and elusive language that cannot be understood except by some kind of translation provided pro bono publico (37) on an ex gratia (38) basis.

Latin allusions have consequently fled our language. And unless the teaching of Latin and Greek can be brought in extremis (39) to flourish once more in our schools, no kind of volte-face (40) (sic) (41), reviving the kind of usages commonplace in the days of Gladstone, is likely, per se (42), to occur in most of our lifetimes.

1 at first sight; 2 exempli gratia: for example; 3 and so on; 4 an indispensable condition; 5 in the year of our Lord; 6 at full length; 7 without end; 8 to a sickening degree; 9 word for word; 10 namely; 11 for that purpose; 12 in a series; 13 with full authority; 14 freely; 15 said as an aside; 16 beyond one's legal powers; 17 without opposition; 18 by virtue of office; 19 the position being reversed; 20 good faith; 21 in fact; 22 by right; 23 let the buyer beware; 24 the same state as now; 25 in the light of subsequent events; 26 secret, in confidence; 27 indefinitely;28 in the interests of one side only; 29 and others. 30 the people's voice; 31 a writ to appear; 32 elsewhere; 33 by the fact itself; 34 plan of working; 35 live for the day; 36 other things being equal; 37 for the public good; 38 as a favour; 39 at the point of death (in the last resort); 40 reversal of position; 41 thus (but often used to suggest an error has occurred: eg here, that volte-face is French derived from the Italian rather than Latin); 42 by or in itself

Definitions taken from, or closely based on, the glossary of Latin in Common Usage from the Castelli pocket diary for 2005