• Sign up
  • ‎What is Shvoong?‎
  • Sign In
    Sign In
    Remember my username Forgot your password?

Summaries and Short Reviews

.

Shvoong Home>Books>Latin for the Illiterati: Exorcising the Ghosts of a Dead Language Summary

.

Latin for the Illiterati: Exorcising the Ghosts of a Dead Language

Book Review by: CatherineGallagher     

Original Author: Stone, Jon R.
This is a book most helpful for students, scholars, and general readers who are frustrated, mystified, aor bemused by the
Latin words, phrases, abbreviations and occasional famous short quotations in Latin which are used in English (or other language) works without explanation or translation. Whether you have small Latin, or none, or quite a bit many years ago, this book opens the mystery of meaning in Latin as it is sprinkled throughout our literate past (when EVERYONE was expected to have a classical education) and in ur present when certain words, phnrases and abbreviations are expected to be known commonly by anyone reading said works.  This is frequently not the case, especially by a  more casual reader in such fields as law, literature, theology, medicine and the like. After a brief introduction explaining how and why the author conceived and wrote this book,he lists the references used, gives an equally brief pronunciation guide, and dives into the meat of the text.  There is a list then of VERBI (common words and expressions), DICTI (common phrases and familiar expressions), ABBREVIATIONS, and MISCELLANEOUS (such things as dates, numbers and Roman numerals, the Seven Hills of Rome, places, etc.)  Finally, he has an English-Latin Index. This book is an excellent reference: clear, concise, and extremely useful.
Published: June 04, 2007
Please Rate this Review : 1 2 3 4 5

Bookmark & share this post

Read best seller reviews

.