Are You Ready for a Thin, Cold Love? --The Colonel Carries On #98

by Barney Rate and Barbie Kendoll

Epigraph: “About 60 per cent of Britons live within 20 miles of where they lived when they were fourteen. More than 30 per cent of Britons younger than 18 have never seen a live cow. We’re not the people we used to be, and yet we are.” --Sir Harry O. Triggerman

Epigraph 2: “The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep.” --Sen. S.I. Hayakawa

On Wednesday, as I was crossing a great expanse of blacktop in the hot sun, I heard a scream from the sky and looked up. Five vultures were circling lazily above me, and one apparently screamed hello. It was an odd feeling.

It reminded me that this series of “Popcorn By The Colonel,” under the name “The Colonel Carries On,” is nearly over (this is #98; #100 will be the last).

Transcontinental television coverage of the total eclipse was weird. About one minute per hour was of the eclipse itself (very dramatic!). The rest had the camera on the crowds in city after city. It was like Hamlet with the Prince making a cameo appearance or two.

Even if you never took any Latin, you probably know at least half the following sixty or so Latin words and expressions (if you care, you can Google any you don't know):

A priori, ad hoc, ad hominem, ad infinitum, ad libitum (ad lib), ad nauseam, anno domini (A.D.) (ante bellum has been Englished as antebellum), ante meridiem (a.m.), bona fide, carpe diem, caveat emptor, cogito ergo sum, corpus delicti, Deo gratias, deus ex machina, e pluribus unum.

Errare humanum est, et alia (et al.), et cetera (etc.), ex cathedra, ex libris, ex officio, ex post facto, exempla gratia (e.g.), exeunt omnes (a stage direction), flagrante delicto, gloria in excelsis Deo, habeas corpus, habemus papam (“We have a pope!”), ibidem (ibid.), id est (i.e.).

Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum (I.N.R.I. -- there’s no letter "J" in Latin), in absentia, in camera, in extremis, in loco parentis, in memoriam, in perpetuum, in situ, in terrorem, in toto, in utero,  in vino veritas, in vitro, lingua franca, mea culpa.

Memento mori (used as an English noun, a "reminder of death," lit. "remember that you must die"), mutatis mutandis (adapted as needed, lit. "with the necessary changes having been made"), non compos mentis, non sequitur, (Pater Noster would go here, but it's been Englished as "paternoster") per annum, per diem, per se.

Persona non grata, (post mortem and post partum would go here, but they've been Englished as postmortem and postpartum) post meridiem (p.m.), post scriptum (p.s.).

Pro bono [publico], pro forma, pro rata, pro tanto, pro tempore (pro tem), quid pro quo, quod vide (q.v.), quod erat demonstrandum (Q.E.D.), requiescat in pace (R.I.P.), semper fidelis (semper fi).

Senatus Populusque Romanus (SPQR), sic semper tyrannis, sic transit gloria mundi, sine die, sine qua non, (sub poena has been Englished as subpoena) (sub rosa has been Englished as subrosa) tempus fugit, "Veni, Vidi, Vici," via dolorosa, vice versa, videlicet (viz. = “namely”).

All that having been said, English is still a Germanic language, a German Christmas tree festooned with ornaments from other languages, Latin being the commonest because of the Norman Conquest and a second wave of Latin imports later.

Stick with “when pigs fly,” since “when bears climb trees” won’t do any more. Will someone please buy this Ukrainian brown bear a backscratcher?

Seventeen-foot-tall man walks into a bar, says, “Ow! I barked my shin!” Bartender says, “That’s a doggone shame.” Tall guy beats bartender to a paste. The paste says, “Good thing I didn’t say, ‘How’s the weather up there?’ Might have irritated the guy.”

“Cop Explains How It Feels To Live Every Day In Fear Someone Might Record You Brutalizing A Civilian” --Onion headline

“I’m not Joan Baez and I make no apologies for that fact.”

Hypograph: “Art makes stones stony. It defamiliarizes things so we can perceive them anew.” --lost the citation

Hypograph 2:

Big bugs have little bugs

Upon their backs, to bite ‘em

Little bugs have lesser bugs,

And so on, ad infinitum.