A Place of Brightness: thanksgiving

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Thanksgiving in Latin

Young and the Restless actor and Francophone Christian Le Blanc just tweeted:

I'm fascinated to learn here that French has preserved from Latin the idiomatic pairing of the verb ago, agere, egi, actum (noun derivative actio, actionis) with the noun gratia, gratiae (French descendent grâce) to arrive at the phrase "to give thanks." (gratias ago, I give thanks, gratiarum actio, Thanksgiving,

As a Latin teacher, the verb agere is an endless pain to explain to students. They reasonably just want to know what a Latin word means. And in the case of this verb, I have to tell them that agere is translated quite differently depending on the object it takes.

If you agere a chariot, it's "driving a chariot." If you agere thanks, it's "give thanks." If you agere business, it's "do business."

Another fun one is the verb gero, gerere, where you either "wear clothing" or "wage war."

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Wild Turkeys!

We have a group of wild turkeys that have lived in our backyard for a few months. I'm going to be eating a member of this species tomorrow, so it's fitting to study them up close for a moment. Here they are one day perched on the railing of my back deck:

First of all, they're obviously social animals. These five have now somehow dwindled to four since this picture was taken (I can only imagine that a car or a coyote was involved), but they still walk my backyard as a tight team.

Secondly, they can apparently fly, at least short distances. My deck, where you see them perched, is fifteen feet above the ground.

So, I like these guys. And I'm especially going to the like the one rubbed with a dry brine in my refrigerator as we speak.

In Saecula Saeculorum, the 4th Novel in the Valquist Series

In this fourth novel of the Valquist Series, Andrew Valquist is retired (?) from the National Security Agency and teaching Latin at a Classical Academy in the Washington DC area. But in the world of espionage, looks can be deceiving. He's not necessarily happy with the role he has played in all this, but the school was actually a joint NSA/MI-6 Project in which four young people have been unwittingly prepared for a mission to travel back in time to ancient Rome to retrieve information from a library that may save the modern world from certain destruction. They know they have to at least try to save humanity, but can they also save each other?

Next Stop: Spanish, the 3rd Novel in the Valquist Series

This third novel in the Valquist Series can be read as an espionage action-adventure in its own right, but also you can use it as a way to either brush up on your Spanish or learn functional Spanish for the first time! John Valquist needs to learn Spanish. But he's in luck, since his uncle Andrew is a language expert and a former (?) spy who is taking him on a vacation to Spain so he can study the language. In Next Stop: Spanish, you have the chance to see and study the words John studies, and then watch him add more and more Spanish into his dialogue as the story progresses. During this vacation, they get pulled into espionage intrigue (why do these things always happen to the Valquist family?). In the dramatic conclusion, John will need to put together everything he has learned to save his uncle!

Amor Vincit Omnia: the 2nd Novel in the Valquist Series

In this second novel of the Valquist Series, Keith Massey takes you into the halls of the National Security Agency, where he himself worked for four years after 9/11 and an Arabic linguist. You follow our hero Andrew Valquist, as he starts work as a new recruit at the NSA. Little does he know that on his first on the job, he's about to fly off on an unexpected overseas assignment. He'll be even more surprised when he learns that his background in ancient Latin will be crucial to the mission!