Our Latin teacher was such a gift. Even though he was a luminary in the classics world, a retired professor of graduate school, fluent in seven languages, he was living in our remote valley and willing to teach us the rudiments of Latin. We jumped into Wheelock's Latin and received more, so much more, than Latin. He knew the stories behind the sentences we were translating; he knew the nuances and idioms of Latin; he knew innumerable references in English literature to this Latin phrase. His memory was stunning - his ability to retrieve quotations, cite authors, remember character's names was the stuff of legend. When he introduced the "ethical dative" he would tell us how Jane Austen used it!
Regularly he would address the younger students saying, "Kids, this is an important word for you to know" and go on to introduce a word I had never once heard or seen. In the arrogance of my ignorance I figured if I'd never run across it, these kids would never in a lifetime see it. A little rolling of the eyes leads to a little crow on the dinner plate. Inevitably, in-e-vi-ta-bly, I would come across that word within a week, and stumble over it several times within a month's time.
One of those words was concatenation. Chapter 2 of Wheelock's had this sentence from Horace: Me saevis catenis onerat. He oppresses me with cruel chains. Beloved teacher sees catenis (chains) and introduces this very important word:
A series of links united; a series or order of things depending on each other, as if linked together; a chain, a succession.
Concatenation was the first of a series of obscure words that I learned from our beloved teacher and whenever I run across it now a special glow of remembrance, a delicious warmness works through me and I sigh a quite contented sigh. That word is now an old friend which I gladly welcome to my hearth.
This week I read The Catnappers by P.G. Wodehouse and came to these words:
"Sir?"
"You know what I mean. You talk of a something of circumstances which leads to something. Cats enter into it, if I'm not wrong."
"Would concatenation be the word you are seeking?"
"That's right. It was on the tip of my tongue. Do concatenations of circumstances arise?"
"Yes, sir."
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