I rest my case
PEOPLE sometimes ask me what they can do to make their children love language. Apart from promising them a pet hedgehog if they read poetry aloud (you don’t need to understand why the Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold to appreciate the thunderous rhythm with which he did it), I have three words: As, ter and ix.
Some may think that Messrs Goscinny (writer) and Uderzo (artist) were mere makers of children’s picture books. Some would be wrong. I am but one of legions who first had their funny bones tickled by these masters of the acrobatic aphorism. I wasn’t clever enough to follow their rubber-tongued linguistics in French (children in France are such geniuses), but the English contortions performed by translator Anthea Bell were just as supple.
I remember in particular a silly pun where a long-winded senator is told to get off the floor by another, who yells: “Give that plebiscite.” I looked up “plebiscite” and discovered that it meant a vote by elected officials on an important public decision. All very well, but then I saw that it was pronounced “pleb a seat” and have found it hysterically funny ever since.
Ms Bell used more nimble wordplay in giving the characters their English names. Thus we have the dimwitted but muscular Olympic athlete Gluteus Maximus, senators Veriambitious, Egganlettus and Infirmofpurpus, the beautiful Panacea, rotund Gaulish chief Vitalstatistix and his shrewish wife Impedimenta, and the fishmongers Unhygienix and Bacteria.
Since these were Roman times, Goscinny and Bell mined a seam of Latin gold. In Asterix and the Laurel Wreath there is a wealthy Roman called Osseus Humerus (funny bone), whose daughter and wife are respectively called Tibia (shin bone) and Fibula (bone behind the shin bone).
As Captain Phillips might say, let’s not forget the pirates. Pegleg is an elderly and annoyingly philosophical pirate with a wooden leg (naturally). Whenever the Jolly Roger ship is scuppered (as happens frequently, usually effected by the Gauls), he deals with the stress of stormy seas by clinging to a plank and spouting classical quotations. One of these is: “O tempora! O mores!”
This is a phrase made famous by Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero in around 40BC. It translates as: “Oh the times! Oh the customs!” (although the ancient Romans did not have exclamation marks). As a lament against the viciousness and corruption of any age, it never goes out of fashion. These days some translate it as “Oh the times! Oh the manners!” which makes even more sense if you’ve been to Burger King lately.
Latin today is mostly confined to the courtroom. Those of us glued to the televised legal proceedings of the hour might hear another phrase coined by Cicero: res ipsa loquitur.
In some foreign courts, this is a legal term that indicates negligence. In plain speech, it means it is clear that the bad thing that happened may not have happened had the person accused of doing the bad thing been a bit more careful. For example, if a scalpel is found in your stomach, the logical conclu- sion might be that this could not have happened without some dereliction of duty by the surgeon. Therefore ( res ipsa loquitur) the surgeon could be found to be irresponsible, and therefore responsible for making amends.
Under South African law, res ipsa loquitur is not a bona fide legal term, but it is sometimes heard in courtrooms anyway, just for the hell of it. Literally translated, it means “the thing itself speaks”, or “let the facts speak for themselves”. Zigackly, as Obelix might have put it.