Re: Help with my Latin

[Patricia Hills & Kevin Whitfield <whitfield_hills@MEDIAONE.NET>]

My Latin is a bit rusty, but here goes:

1. Exertus comes from exsero, to thrust out, e.g. a tongue. Perhaps you mean
exercitus from exerceo. In the past participle it can mean harassed, vexed.
So then, perhaps:  exercitus sum (not est because we are modeling this on
Cogito ergo sum). But we still need to get testing in. We could be sly and
use quaestio -- question under torture: "quaestione exercitus sum. ergo
vomito" (vomo is more usual, but the more recognizable vomito will do here,
I think). Unfortunately  the simplicity of cogito ergo sum is lost. And
quaestio requires a bit of erudition.

2. Let's try something simpler:  MCAS oppressus sum ergo vomito - I've been
oppressed by MCAS therefore I vomit.

3.  Or in the present tense MCAS opprimor. ergo vomito. I'm being oppressed
by MCAS therefore I vomit. Here we lose the more recognizable "oppressus".

But we're still too far from Descartes elegant three words.

Well then I have to give up now, and, frankly, I urge you to abandon this
project. My issue is with the use of vomito (or vomo), which takes away from
the fact that MCAS is, without any doubt, a deadly serious attack on
students, one which is already inflicting serious harm (e.g., on SPED
students, and on minority and working class students, who have never been
given a fair chance to learn). I can understand wanting to put a humorous
spin on the tests as a way of protecting the kids from the seriousness of it
all, but it won't work. They are the targets (along with their teachers, of
course) of a determined, nationwide campaign to destroy public education.
This campaign is not going to go away. The best we can do for our young
people is to show them that we're mobilized and ready to do whatever it
takes to turn back this attack on our schools and that they are part of this
movement.


Good luck.

Kevin Whitfield
whitfield_hills@mediaone.net



----- Original Message -----
From: Flanigan, Allen <Allen.Flanigan@USPTO.GOV>
To: <ARN-L@listsrva.cua.edu>
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2000 10:33 PM
Subject: Help with my Latin


| I have been kicking around a slogan which might be suitable for t-shirts
for
| certain test-averse children, and naturally thought of Latin.  How's my
| translation?
|
| Exertus Est, ergo Vomito (I am tested, therefore I vomit).
|
| Maybe we could even do a little picture of a bubble sheet covered with a
| fresh eruption.  It would definitely sell to 6th grade boys, anyway,
| wouldn't it?
|
| (many thanks Susan O for that story in the Sacramento Bee quoting Bob
| Rayborn of Harcourt, and of course to Mr. Rayborn, the consummate
| professional:  "I've seen where kids have thrown up on the test. Kids do
get
| sick . . . The appropriate way to deal with that would be to put [the
test]
| in a plastic bag." )
|
| Allen F.
|
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