November 18, 2008
June 6, 2008
March 27, 2008
Word of the day: Juris-Jitsu
Juris-Jitsu: the art of jurisprudential ass-kicking; the ability to inflict paralyzing verbal/linguistic blows to subdue or disable an opponent in litigation or legal debate.*
E.g.: Justice Scalia in a ninth-degree black belt in juris-jitsu; Justice Kennedy’s juris-jitsu is weak.
Feel free to create your own “juris-jitsu” sentences in the comments.
T-shirts and other merchandise to follow. :)
*Copyright © 2008, Fedster.
October 7, 2006
Calling all Latin experts
Major Joel Leggett, SA coblogger and one our nation’s finest/bravest, emailed me the following question:
Steve,
I have an odd request that I hope you can help me with. I need the Latin phrase for “The Constitution and People of America.” This is, no doubt, a contemporary reformulation of the Roman motto SPQR, “The Senate and People of Rome.” I am not well versed in Latin and have no idea how to translate the aforementioned phrase into that language. Based on your past use of Latin I assume you have the ability, or know someone who does, to help me with this. Any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated.Sincerely,
Joel
I responded as follows:
Joel-My best guess (based on my research and discussion with a buddy who actually took Latin) would be:“Constitutio populusque Americae”given that “The Senate and People of Rome” translates to:“senatus populusque romanum”
I hope this helps.If you like, I can try to confirm this by way of a post on SA. My guess is that one of our many readers is most likely an expert in Latin and can either confirm or correct the foregoing translation.Best-Steve
Joel emailed me back, graciously expressing confidence in my translation, but agreeing that posting the question on the big board was be a good idea.
So, can anyone help us out? Is the translation above accurate or even in the ballpark? Any help that y’all can give me would be greatly appreciated. It isn’t often that I can do something, anything, for our fighting men and women, and as such I would really like to help Joel translate this phrase properly.
August 30, 2006
Anglophile corner
Because 2006 is the centenary of his birth, the English poet John Betjeman has gotten a spot of attention recently, including this link-rich John Derbyshire essay for NRO. There’s also lots of audio available on this BBC Radio 4 webpage.
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August 18, 2006
Any linguists out there?
If so, I would really appreciate some assistance in working through the etymology of a particular word.
You can email me at sladillard@gmail.com
“The etymology of macaque and related forms”
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July 6, 2006
For those of you who think I am a little too attached to my Compact OED
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