A Latin note

From Twitter….

“HA HA!  Typo!”, you might be saying.  “Don’t they know it’s sacrificandam not scarificandam?”

Nope.  There is actually a Latin verb scarifico, meaning, “to scratch open, scarify”.  To “scarify” in English means to cut and scratch off debris, as in a medical procedure.

Now about that fodat….   Oooops.   You mean fodiat, right?   Fodio… doh!

Really, it’s a bit of a clunky mess (“illud est ut illa“?  Who talks like that?), but you get the drift.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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4 Comments

  1. Josephus Muris Saliensis says:

    I was speaking to the gardener only this morning about scarifying the lawn, which indeed is done with a tool with spikes that ‘fodiant’ the soil. A jolly prayer, showing that the natural world and the spiritual life go hand in hand, and deserve the same care and similar treatment. As Father Z says, perhaps it has something rustic of the gardener in the syntax. But then one doubts that Cicero was much good with a hoe!

    And as Our Lord reminds us about pruning plants bringing forth abundant fruit, so – dig deep! scratch hard!

    God bless our Pope!

  2. Filiolus says:

    Maybe Cicero wasn’t good with a hoe, but Cato certainly was.

  3. JPCahill says:

    Leaving Latin style aside — I’m sure mine is dreadful — but I tend to give online Latin typos a pardon. Whenever I type something in Latin, spellcheck goes on an absolute Roman holiday of correcting. I have to be so careful to proofread every last letter. And even when I’ve corrected the correction, I swear spellcheck waits until my back is turned and goes at it again.

  4. At least Pope Francis is trying!

    [He certainly is trying.]

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