Summer Latin Institute - DAY 12, 10:48 a.m.

Just had a fabulous first hour of morning drills on Unit 9 sentences, covering comparison of adjectives (regular and irregular), comparison with quam and the ablative of comparison, ablative of degree of difference, comparison of adverbs (regular and irregular) and the partitive genitive. Whew!

This afternoon = my first grammar lecture. Well prepared but of course a bit anxious nonetheless. Unit 10, covering ablatives absolute, the "UNUS NAUTA" adjectives (adjectives with genitive singular in -īus), ferō and its compounds, ablative of cause, and ablative or genitive of description.

My goal for this week is to push our students to smoother translations, faster, while retaining or improving accuracy. They need to stop thinking out loud before they translate a word. As the late great Seth Benardete once said at the Advanced Summer Institute on Tacitus, regarding a sentence at Annals 6.28 about the generation and regeneration of the phoenix being translated by a slightly squeamish student: "Squirt...semen! Just say it!"

FYI, Tacitus' Latin phrase is "vim genitalem adfundere," which I must admit I would be inclined to render as "to pour forth genital force," but I remember quite clearly that Professor Benardete was quite insistent that the student say "squirt semen." Maybe it was just his way of having fun, sort of the way he loved to tell stories about British spies who were blackmailed on the basis of their homosexuality. Gotta love the memory of that man.

More soon...

Note: The opinions expressed in this blog entry are those of the blogger, and do not represent the opinions of the CUNY Latin/Greek Institute, its students, faculty, or administration.