SHUDDER

[Laura Gibbs]

I am a bit hesitant to post this but I've really got to say something somewhere, just to VENT… I sometimes despair about the lack of knowledge of Latin by the teachers on a Latin teachers listserve in which I participate. I don't mean lack of knowledge of the minutiae of Latin grammar or difficult vocabulary, etc. I mean what seems to be almost a complete lack of basic knowledge about the language itself. Today, for example, a teacher who participates actively in the list sent around this request:

A colleague sent me this to decipher. I wonder if anyone could provide enlightening information about the source or what sense you would/can make of it. I myself envision rather a lot of emendations. :-) Eliquatuero dip eros nusan vent etlam, conum zritla facillum et initit doloreet ullametuero od lor adit. Duis volore consecte se velit ver adionse agnisc gniamet.

Well, suffice to say, this is not Latin. It is a chunk of "lorem ipsum" text, which many of you might be familiar with from its use in publishing and design. It is gibberish vaguely related to Latin (but complete and utter gibberish), and there are machines online that will generate as much lorem ipsum text as you want: http://www.lipsum.com

I really fear for the students of a teacher who cannot even tell the difference between a text in Latin and complete and utter gibberish (there are four words in that text which are actual Latin words: adit - se - velit - ver… THAT'S ALL: the text is patently absolutely clearly not written in Latin). Moreover, this teacher (who proudly lists her title as Dr. when she signs her emails) actually expected that other teachers on this list would help her to sort the gibberish out.

Really.

I see a lot of things on this listserve that make me shudder, but this has to be the worst.

I guess maybe even worse than her thinking this was Latin was that she did not just Google the thing (which is all over the place on the Internet as a result of the widespread use of lorem ipsum: over 5000 search results!!!), which would have given her a clue that something was going on. How is that people, highly trained people with a PhD (eeeek), would not have the sense to Google something before they bother hundreds of people on a listserve about something that they could have found the answer to themselves in less than a second…

SIGH.

Now we will just see how many dozens of people write back to the list to tell her it is lorem ipsum. The listserve technology is very antiquated and, unlike a discussion board, tends to result in dozens of people sending identical emails to the list for a query as obvious as this one...

[Laura Gibbs]

It is failing the Google test that really gets to me more than anything... I basically Google EVERYTHING that I have even a glimmer of doubt about... and the reason why? Because I am constantly wrong about things, even things I think I am pretty sure about. Google is a LIFESAVER. We are like the old Roman emperors now, each having our own virtual nomenclator to whisper the right names of things in our ears... thank goodness!

[Ian Carmichael]

I'd say tsk, tsk - but I did this myself (well - almost). My Hebrew teacher brought me a document to read once - and as I was studiously pondering it, he said "Mr Carmichael - it would help if you turned it right side up!" (An embarassment not much reduced by seeing the then-latest 'You beaut' Introduction to the Old Testament also had an inverted plate of a Hebrew manuscript.)

Ah, well - still a classics scholar failing to spot eros as Greek, and not recognising major ruptures of Latin morphology... and failing the Google test - even the Bing test!