Latin and why I (and Kate) love it dearly.

"Abutebaris modo subjunctivo" - You've been misusing the subjunctive.

This cracks me up. As a linguist, I know I'm the only one laughing, but I thought I'd share.

There's more! It's been over a decade since I've uttered these sentences.

"Grumio delectat ancillam." - Grumio 'pleases' the slave girl.

"Ancilla delectat Grumionem." - The slave girl 'pleases' Grumio.

Back story:
Kate and I share the Latin experience. In high school, we loved Latin class. You might ask, though, what do you learn in Latin class. We learned about a Roman family "telenovella". My favourite part of this ancient soap opera, by far, was the tertiary relationships in the Roman household. The two main characters of the lay people were the slave girl, which had no name I recall; and Grumio, which was the chef of the household.

However, when you turn 16, you realize that 'to please' and 'to pleasure' mean almost the same thing. Innuendo was everywhere, for example, the pictures that accompanied those sentences above can be described in this manner. Grumio handed a bunch of flowers to the slave girl. Ahh how sweet! The other photo, which is harder to recall, illustrated a coy look in Grumio's direction. I get it! They do naughty things. The first day of grade 11 Latin, we did a review and these were in the section we choose to review. There was a collective giggle: only then did we all understood how much of a soap opera this really was. Interestingly enough, class started around 2pm! No wonder the class was full of females!