Abdicate

Abdicate [ab: away + dicare: to dedicate, consecrate, or set apart] The literal meaning of abdicate is: to set oneself away from something. The dictionary definitions do not deviate far from the literal meaning. Abdicate:  To relinquish; to renounce; to abandon; to...

Right? Wrong? Who cares?

Amoral [Greek ά (without) and Latin mos, moris (custom, habit, morals)]. The moral of a story teaches us a good lesson.  From the moral, we learn the right thing to do.  If we are amoral, we are without standards.  We do not care about right and wrong.    Sometimes...

The Vulgate Latin Course

In February 2014, I started producing a series of free screencasts. They are all on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/visuallatin I was using the Vulgate Course, by William Dodds.  It is available free from Google Books.  It is available as a reprint here on...

Abandon

Abandon Old French abandoner, from Latin ab (away from), and bannum (proclamation, edict). The Old French phrase mettre a bandon meant “to send under the control, or jurisdiction of another.”  Pontius Pilate attempts “mettre a bandon” in the gospel of Luke.  Eager to...

Get Smart.

For four years, I’ve posted a “word a day” to Facebook. No really. I have.   See: https://www.facebook.com/laughatlatin Honestly, I should change “a word a day” to “a word most days”. I don’t post every day. Intend...

One Backpack

I’m a bit of a minimalist. If you have ever been inside a classroom, you may have noticed something. Teachers are not minimalists. Teachers, like nature, abhor a vacuum. In a deliberate attempt to go the other way, I have trashed much.  My goal, as a teacher, is...