Latin aphorisms

[C M Smith <cmsmith@domain.elided>]

Well, Caesar probably didn't actually say veni vidi vici, but it reads well 
in the history books. As for the reverse saying, I'm intrigued that the 
Romans included a word which clearly seems to be a translation of modern 
English slang, how prescient. Quaere: how did the useage become lost only 
to be..er...revived in the late twentieth century. I confess to no 
expertise in lewd lingo, but it seems a stretch so to speak. I did see the 
phrase on a pair of underpants (panties even) in the window of a shop I 
assumed to specialize in such things. I did, perhaps too hastily, assume a 
complete ignorance of Latin on the part of the proprietor thereof, not to 
say purveyor.

My favourite automotive related "latin" saying appears to have been coined 
by Automobile magazine and should be every performance driver's credo: 
cogito ergo zoom...with apologies to old Rene who I'm sure felt he'd said 
something infinitely more profound if practically useless...especially for 
the performance driver.

You know, Mazda missed something there with their rather weird and cult 
like soom soom soom background mantra for their recent ads.

So: points for correctly spelling Caesar (though the claim that we know how 
the dead language of Latin was pronounced is shall we say suspect? as in 
who knows eh?) and points for obscure references to the off colour posts 
about vvv ,au verso so to speak, and points for knowing how to correctly 
use Quaere in a sentence, points for use of latin terms camouflaged as 
English, and points for the automotive relevance tenuously made. Lastly, 
points for knowing the origin of the correct quotation assuming both that 
my readers will know the correct quote as well as the full name of the source.

Cheers, and yes veni vidi vici is not an aphorism, that was my point.

Now about that camber.....
Michael Smith
Calgary, Alberta,Canada
91 Alfa 164L
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