''Latin for All Occasions'' (''Lingua Latina Occasionibus Omnibus'') is a 1990 book by

Henry Beard Henry Nichols Beard (born June 7, 1945) is an American humorist, one of the founders of the magazine '' National Lampoon'' and the author of several best-selling books. Life and career Beard, a great-grandson of 14th Vice President John C. B ...

, and ''Latin for Even More Occasions'' (''Lingua Latina Multo Pluribus Occasionibus'') is a 1991 sequel. Both contain translations of modern English phrases into mostly literal

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

equivalents. Beard is known as a humorist but studied Latin for eight years at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

. He wrote the Latin himself, but had it checked and polished by scholars Mark Sugars and Winifred Lewellen. The idea for the books was from

John Boswell John Eastburn Boswell (March 20, 1947December 24, 1994) was an American historian and a full professor at Yale University. Many of Boswell's studies focused on the issue of religion and homosexuality, specifically Christianity and homosexuality ...

. The illustrations are by Mikhail Ivenitsky and both books were published by

Villard Books Villard, also known as Villard Books, is a publishing imprint of Random House, one of the largest publishing companies in the world, owned in full by Bertelsmann since its acquisition of a final 25% stake in 2019, and grouped in Penguin Random ...

, a division of

Random House Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...

. The translations are mostly direct, so an English expression like "Get your ducks in a row" is translated as ''Anates tuas in acie instrue''. The significance of having ducks lined up would presumably be a mystery to an ancient Roman, or indeed to a non-American.

Sample phrases

*You're fired. ''Ego te demitto.'' *Look out, I'm going to barf! ''Cave, vomiturus sum!'' *Oh! Was I speaking Latin again? ''Vah! Denuone Latine loquebar?'' *Your fly is open. ''Braccae tuae hiant'' *You're beautiful! ''Pulcher es!'' (masculine), ''Pulchra es!'' (feminine) *Honey, I'm home! ''Melita, domi adsum!'' Some of the phrases are not even intended to be helpful, and are included instead purely for the purposes of comedy: *Infernal machine! Give me a beverage or give me back my money! ''Machina improba! Vel mihi ede potum vel mihi redde nummos meos!''

References

* Henry Beard, ''Latin for All Occasions; Villard Books'', 1990, . (Reprinted 2004, Gotham books, .) * Henry Beard, ''Latin for Even More Occasions'', 1991, . 1990 non-fiction books Linguistics books Villard (imprint) books Books about Latin Books by Henry Beard {{latin-stub