You know you're a Latin junkie when...

[epaminondas]

The waitress tells you that your credit card was declined and your response is, "That's impossible! It's not even a noun!"

Any others?

 

[malleolus]

When you come back to this site serveral times a day although you know you've got little to contribute.

 

[Iohannes Aurum]

...you speak English with trilled "r"s, as well as having words arranged as in Latin (even with appropriate genders, declensions, and conjugations)

 

[LCF]

You accidently use the lain accusative in your every day language.

 

[Cinefactus]

Your children groan, when you tell them, "X is a word which comes from the Latin...".

 

[Pacifica]

...you speak English with trilled "r"s, as well as having words arranged as in Latin (even with appropriate genders, declensions, and conjugations)

How is it possible to have appropriate genders, declensions and conjugations in English? As there are no genders except for he/she/it, practically no conjugation, and no declensions except in personal pronouns and who/whom/whose? So what is appropriate in English is practically no gender, practically no conjugation and no practically no declensions...I'm not sure I quite get what you mean... Unless you mean that you imagine in your mind "this would be in acc. in Latin, this would be in dat..." If that's it I also do it!

 

[Iohannes Aurum]

How is it possible to have appropriate genders, declensions and conjugations in English? As there are no genders except for he/she/it, practically no conjugation, and no declensions except in personal pronouns and who/whom/whose? So what is appropriate in English is practically no gender, practically no conjugation and no practically no declensions...I'm not sure I quite get what you mean... Unless you mean that you imagine in your mind "this would be in acc. in Latin, this would be in dat..." If that's it I also do it!

Yes, I meant imagining it in your mind. Of course modern English got rid of its genders, its declensions, and its conjugations for the most part.

 

[Pacifica]

Yes, I meant imagining it in your mind.

Then we've got a common point . (And I guess we mustn't be the only ones around here...)

 

[Manus Correctrix]

You accidently use the lain accusative in your every day language.

As in ‘Thanks for the ointment; it really cleared up my fungum’?

 

[Manus Correctrix]

When you order a martinus and the barman asks if you mean ‘martini’, and you say ‘If I had wanted to order more than one, young man, I would have done so!’.

 

[Godmy]

Yes, I meant imagining it in your mind. Of course modern English got rid of its genders, its declensions, and its conjugations for the most part.

I don't think that language shapes natives' thinking to the lengths that the gender concept is that unknown to them just because they don't bother to mention it in their language If somebody talks to you about a person... or I don't know... about god/God (to mention something more abstract), I think that for anybody is important gender (in their mind): the reality that the language doesn't bother to mention it is something else, but we think esentially in the same way whatever language we use.
(+ most inanimate things are simply neuter for the English, probably)

Sorry for being OT

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In Czech a latinist uses more obscure and archaic declensions, e.g:

Non-Latinist: Cicero, bez Cicera (=Cicero, sine Cicerone)
Latinist (corrects non latinist): Cicero, bez Cicerona

Non-Latinist: Apollo, bez Apolla (=sine Apollone)
Latinist: Apollo, bez Apollona

Non-Latinist: Jůlius, bez Jůliuse (=sine Iulio)
Latinist: Jůlius, bez Jůlia

Non-Latinist: datum, datumy (=datum, data)
Latinist: datum, data

Non-Latinist (and uneducated ): Zeus, bez Zeuse (=sine Iove)
Latinist: Zeus, bez Dia

Non-Latinist: první pád / 1. pád (=casus nominativus)
Semi-Latinist: nominativ (pronounced with "f" in the end, because we have a "final devoicing")
Super-Latinist: nominativus

(... same for all the other cases )

Non-Latinist: poema, poemy (=poema, poemata)
Latinist: poema, poemata

etc.

 

[Acsacal]

Some decades ago a controvery arose in France regarding the use of maximum and such superlatives as adjectives. Some people said température maximum, other température maxima. Eventually the adjectives optimal, minimal, maximal were created.
As for the nouns (maximum, optimum, etc.), the three writen forms maxima maximas and maximums and I actually don't know which is the right one.
Medium is mostly written media in the singular and medias in the plural when referring to newspaper, TV, etc. Those who communicate with ghosts are mediums while a sigle one is a medium.
Instead of data, the French speakers use the French word données: a database = une base de données, a DBMS = a SGBD (système de gestion de bases de données)

 

[Pacifica]

Since I've know some Latin, I can't help feeling uncomfortable with such forms as maximas, maximums, medias... I guess it's also a sign of my addiction... Also, when I watched the series Rome (which I liked very much by the way), I felt a bit irritated when slaves called their master aloud "dominus"; each time I thought, "it should be domine, vocative, damn!"

 

[Pacifica]

Also, though I know that "whom" is almost out of use in common English speech and that it is regarded as perfectly correct to say, for example, "the man who I saw yesterday", most of the time I can't help using "whom" because otherwise I'd feel like I was saying vir qui heri vidi... And it feels wrong!

 

[epaminondas]

Also, though I know that "whom" is almost out of use in common English speech and that it is regarded as perfectly correct to say, for example, "the man who I saw yesterday", most of the time I can't help using "whom" because otherwise I'd feel like I was saying vir qui heri vidi... And it feels wrong!

Rem acu tetigisti! Ditto for the proper usage of I and me. You would be surprised how many speakers/writers of American English believe that using "[insert noun here] and I" is always proper, even as a direct object or the object of a preposition.

 

[Pacifica]

Or the other way round of course. "You and me were..." A mistake I myself did sometimes when I was learning English (which was before I learnt Latin, otherwise I would NEVER have done it!).

 

[Godmy]

When you order a martinus and the barman asks if you mean ‘martini’, and you say ‘If I had wanted to order more than one, young man, I would have done so!’.

Oh, well... I am Martinus

 

[LCF]

Oh, well... I am Martinus

That just became funny if you remove a comma from the orignal sentence.

 

[Acsacal]

Also, though I know that "whom" is almost out of use in common English speech and that it is regarded as perfectly correct to say, for example, "the man who I saw yesterday", most of the time I can't help using "whom" because otherwise I'd feel like I was saying vir qui heri vidi... And it feels wrong!

You should urgently start to learn German (or Icelandic or Faroese...)!
[la] vir qui heri venit => [de] der Man, der gestern kam
[la] vir quem heri vidi => [de] der Man, den ich gestern sah
[la] vir venit => [de] der Man kam, gestern
[la] virum vidi => [de] den Man sah ich gestern

Icelandic is much more funny (I once happened to buy and read Teach yourself Icelandic), but I do not think it is one of the official languages of Belgium

 

[Pacifica]

Icelandic? No, not as far as I know! Our three official languages (as you certainly know) are Dutch, French and German.