Eszter’s post has put me in mind of the excellent Financial Times preview of the latin oration on the (hypothetical) occasion of Bill Clinton assuming the Chancellorship of Oxford University:
bq. Sed Eheu! Magnum disastrum suscepit sua maxima culpa. Per noctem, Novembre MCMLXXXXV Alia Occidentalis Domus Albus laborante, sibi pizza donata est a Monica Lewinsky, puella pulchrissima, sensuosa californicante, fellatrix superiore.
bq. ‘Non coitus est cum hac femina,’ dixit. Sed, per laborem longus et penetrante Kennethi Starri, procurator independentus, et senatoribus Republicanis agitates, testimonia inculpata; togam maculatam, cigarrus grandus, revelata sunt. Domus Representatis imperator Clinton defenestrare tentavit. Senatus, 50-50 divisa est, absolvit.
The “full text is here”:http://www.memefirst.com/article.php?story=20030109203721830 .
{ 4 comments }
squiddy 06.07.04 at 9:19 am
Hang on, that’s a rip off of a regular feature of Private Eye, and is not even that clever,lacking as it does the wit and brevity of the originals.
*Bad* FT, no biscuit.
Andrew Brown 06.07.04 at 2:09 pm
Ah, no. This is real latin, so far as I can tell; which the Private Eye ones aren’t. And it has some really sharp stings in it.
Mrs Tilton 06.08.04 at 9:44 am
It’s been too many years since I graced the schoolroom, so I can’t be sure; but this looks a bit grammatically dodgy. Still, I like ‘longus et penetrante‘. And the rather Bohemian ‘defenestrare‘ for ‘impeach’. ‘Imperator Clinton‘, though, has in modern ears something of a Republican ring to it, for all that imperator in its original sense might well be a more or less suitable term for the commander-in-chief.
jdw 06.08.04 at 3:34 pm
_It’s been too many years since I graced the schoolroom, so I can’t be sure; but this looks a bit grammatically dodgy._
That’s what I thought, too, but I was afraid to say anything because my Latin wasn’t really very good even when I was in the schoolroom.
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