Altum Videtur: Difference between revisions

* The dog funerals in ''[[A Fish Called Wanda]]'' all feature a choir singing "Miserere dominus, canis mortus est."<ref>Lord have mercy, the dog is dead.</ref>

* In ''[[Tombstone]]'', there is a dialog between Ringo and Doc Holliday with common latin quotations.

{{quote|Magna Cum Laude, Summa Cum Laude, The Radio's Too Loud-y. Dominus, Festivus, Missed the bus.}}

* In ''[[Leviathan (film)|Leviathan]]'', the Doc is thoughtful enough to give an English version of his commentary on radical genetic engineering: "''Natura non confundenda est.'' Loosely translated: ''[[Gone Horribly Wrong|don't]] [[Lego Genetics|fuck]] [[The Virus|with]] [[Biological Mashup|Mother]] [[Body Horror|Nature]]''."

* In ''[[Priest (1994 film)|Priest]]'', after Father Greg's [[Crisis of Faith]] escalates (and his arrest for having [[Auto Erotica|gay sex in a car]] ends up in the newspaper), he flees to a remote parish, headed by a priest who dresses him down in Latin.

** The Ood's songs in the episodes "Planet of the Ood" (which turned into a full choir for a reprise "Journey's End") and ''The End of Time'' are in Classical Ood, but [[Translator Microbes|translated by the TARDIS]] into ridiculously bad Latin for human ears.

* Any time a ''[[Star Trek]]'' episode from any series uses a Latin title, you can be assured that the title, when translated, carries significant meaning to the plot of the episode.

** And [[Dueling Shows|since you can't mention Deep Space Nine on the internet without someone bringing up]] ''[[Babylon 5]]'': there was an episode of the latter show titled ''Sic Transit Vir'' <ref>"Thus passes Vir" or "Thus passes man", since "vir" can mean "man"</ref> (a Latin pun on a character's name, no less).

*** {{spoiler|Kinda makes you wonder how long he had been waiting to [[I Always Wanted to Say That|use that one]].}}

* ''[[Mr. Bean]]'' has an opening theme tune consisting of a choir intoning, "Ecce homo qui est faba."<ref>"Behold the man who is a bean."</ref> The same choir closes each episode with, "Vale homo qui est faba."<ref>"Farewell, man who is a bean."</ref>

** Even the show's commercial breaks are denoted with Latin singing: "Finis partis primae"<ref>"End of part one"</ref> and "Pars secunda"<ref>"Part two"</ref>

* In ''[[Kaamelott]]'', King Loth is fond of meaningless Latin quotes. The Latin language (in the quotes) is mostly legitimate, but Loth's translations are always inaccurate.

* ''[[House (TV series)|House]]'' did this in a conversation with Amber-slash-Cutthroat Bitch: (episode is "Don't Ever Change")

** Actually Latin was heavy on simplifications, the Romans elided everything they could from their sentences, perhaps in an effort to sound more laconic and no-nonsense, perhaps they had more pressing things to do (like building an empire) than wasting time uttering too many words. They often elided the subject of a phrase when it was apparent who was taking the described action and they hadn't a fixed word for 'yes' but made 'hoc' double for it, other examples could take several pages. This tendency was not merely a quirk of spoken tongue, but had literary dignity and was taken to extremes by people like Julius Caesar, who famously sent the Roman Senate an iconic three words message about his Gallic Campaign: "Veni, Vidi, Vici" (I came, I saw, I conquered); hence Corvus Corax motto could be better rendered as: "Omnia dicta fortiora, si latina".

* Latin is a favorite language of many classical and modern choral composers. For a singer, it may seem difficult to learn the pronounciations at first - anyone who's ever tried to teach Latin pronunciation to an Anglican church choir can tell you that it ''is'' difficult to learn properly after you've been singing it wrong for your entire life. "Veh-'''night'''-ee," indeed.<ref>That's how they'll give you ''Venite'' (Pronounced correctly: Wen-ee-tay). Seriously.</ref> It's called "Church Latin," and while the words are there, its pronunciation is something akin to [[Canis Latinicus]].

* One section of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" is titled "Con mortuis in lingua mortua," meaning "with the dead in a dead language" (though the first word should be "cum", rather than "con" as it would be in Italian).

* ''[[Carmina Burana]]'' has a lot of Latin songs in it, mingling with courtly French and mediaeval German.

{{smallcaps|Tabletop Games}}

 

** Fangame [[Genius: The Transgression]] has the [[Vestigial Empire|Lemurians]], who formed around the time of Rome and their terminology is derived from it. [[Canis Latinicus|As with most modern people, they often aren't very good at speaking it]]...most of the time. In the case of [[Fun with Acronyms|PLPKBs (Proper Latin Plural Knowing Bastards)]], this means they are [[Time Abyss|very old]] or [[Determinator|obsessive enough to teach themselves the language]], which, when dealing with a [[Mad Scientist]], should probably set off danger sirens in the minds of their opponents.

* Subverted in ''[[FATAL]]'', which was kind enough to provide a translation for its pretentious Latin. Usually, this was some kind of crude sexual doggerel. The Latin is also often wrong. On the other hand, at least one part seems to be quoting (or paraphrasing) the crude sexual doggerel of [[Catullus]] (a real Roman poet) - see Catullus 16 on [[The Other Wiki]] for info on that ([[NSFW]] text there though).

 

 

** Makes for a sort of [[Bilingual Bonus]] when all of the [[The Federation|New Californa Republic]] troops pointedly use the Anglified pronounciation of Caesar's name. At least one bit of dialogue indicates that they're ''aware'' of how he wants his name said, they just ''don't care'', given that the Legion and the Republic are at war.

** Your character, with high enough intelligence, can also speak some Latin, and you can use it to [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|fake out a captured Centurion and make him spill the beans on his plans without even needing to raise a fist]].

** Pretty sure that ''Requiescat in pace'' is Italian. The Latin is admittedly the same, but it's probably much more likely that he's speaking Italian.

*** This Italian troper assures that it IS Latin. In Italian it's "riposi in pace" (fortunately, the first, second and third persons of the subjunctive mood of the verb ''riposare'' are the same, unlike Latin ''requiesco'').

{{smallcaps|Webcomics}}

 

{{quote|'''Quentyn''': ''Well, you know why Latin is called the "Scholars'" tongue...? It's a dead language. Never changes, very specific and all that stuff... So scholars can use it to write to one another, and no matter what language they speak they can understand one another, exactly. ...So the Fey are always pulling tricks, right? Getting out of agreements by playing dumb, deliberately misunderstanding words or using double-meanings... But Latin is one of the only languages that they can't do that. In fact, they say that you should only make deals with Fey in Latin for that reason.''}}

* ''[[Breakfast of the Gods]]'': Jarvis's final spell is in decent Latin, except for one word in English. Saying what the spell is would be a ''huge'' spoiler for the whole work.

 

 

* In [[The Slender Man Mythos]], there is the side-story of [http://quiaegosicdico.blogspot.com/ A Lack of Lexicon]. Now, just look at that URL.

* This trope is probably why message board posters [http://community.livejournal.com/wrongworddammit/283991.html wrongly] use "[[Ad Hominem]]" synonymously with "personal attack".

* ''[[The Gungan Council]]'' featured several factions with Latin names, such as Regnum In Potestas and Sine Occasu, for no better reason than it was cool.

* There is some Latin dialogue in [[Greek Ninja]].

* In the episode of ''[[South Park]]'' where Damien (Satan's son) visits the Earth, all of his evil spells are accompanied by some [[Ominous Latin Chanting]] that goes "''Rectus! Dominus!''" before shifting abruptly to "[[Sophisticated As Hell|Cheesy]] [[Rule of Funny|Poofs]]!" (The first two words, by the way, literally translate to "Ass Master.")

 

 

== VERITAS ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Language Tropes]]

[[Category:This Trope Name References Itself]]

[[Category:Gratuitous Foreign Language]]

[[Category:Self-Demonstrating Article]]