Much thanks to adz000 for his excellent info on Gildersleeve and the great advice on reading! (Note to self - go look fervently for Gildersleeve!)
Kilmeny
[quote author=Carola link=board=3;threadid=445;start=15#3757 date=1060747443]
It is rather like those people who chip away at bits of rock patiently and find the fossils underneath!
[/quote]
That’s an excellent simile, but somehow I don’t think Episcopus is going to like it much…
Keesa
[quote author=Keesa link=board=3;threadid=445;start=15#3869 date=1060815716]
[quote author=Carola link=board=3;threadid=445;start=15#3757 date=1060747443]
It is rather like those people who chip away at bits of rock patiently and find the fossils underneath!
[/quote]
That’s an excellent simile, but somehow I don’t think Episcopus is going to like it much…
Keesa
[/quote]
Well, I’m an old fossil myself - and proud of it!
[quote author=Carola link=board=3;threadid=445;start=15#3757 date=1060747443]
It is rather like those people who chip away at bits of rock patiently and find the fossils underneath!
Try also Woodcock
[/quote]
Don’t we have smiley here for insane uncontrollable laughter??
Nope. You have to write it in. Or you could just put several big grins one after the other, I suppose… ;D ;D ;D
Keesa
[quote author=adz000 link=board=3;threadid=445;start=15#3721 date=1060724368]
I’m still curious as to why you’d like consummate knowledge of Latin. There are many languages one can attain consummate knowledge of, but why choose Latin? Why not a modern language? Or for dead languages, Greek? Or Akkadian for that matter? What is it that drives you about Latin?
[/quote]
I already speak Spanish, and, coevally, I am learning ancient Greek, and Italian.
Also, it is pragmatically impossible to attain a perfect knowledge of a contemporary language, because it will always be contemporary (i.e., it is always changing); Latin, however, is static, and, being thus, I can learn to speak it with perfection. Besides, anything, when viewed in a particular light, can be made to seem otiose; however, I have merely decided to arbitrarly place a great praemium on learning Latin (as men do with paper called ‘money’) - that I might not go insane with the knowledge of the futility of persuing anything in life.