In the Good Ol’ days, Latin was reserved for the elite. Between the First Century Anno Domini until the time of Darwin, Latin was an ironic common bond between Scientists and Clergy. Knowing Latin was a clear division between the educated noble class and the vulgar common folk. As of this Morning, August 1st, Latin’s been a “Dead Language” for about a thousand years. Even the Vatican abandoned it as the official lingua franca in the ’60s. It is time to let it take it’s place in history.

This idea that Speaking Latin = Erudition in the year 2007 only leads to a lot of people looking stupid and sounding ridiculous. Exempli gratia- nobody would think you less of an idiot for saying, “I’ll Help You if You’ll Help Me” in Ancient Mayan or Proto-Latvian, but modern speakers are to be taken as geniuses for saying, “We’ll do it Quid Pro Quo” (followed by a smug little wink). Communication is only useful if both parties understand what is being said, ergo, it is useless to say words in a language that no one understands.

Across the internet, bloggers affect intellectualism by spattering pseudo-latin phrases into places they don’t belong. Nothing makes you look like a bigger idiot than trying to sound smart and then saying something nonsensical. Here are some tips:

Tip #1: Et Al. This is an abbreviation for “Et Alia” meaning “And Others.” It is a useful phrase for writing about a bunch of people, and only having to name the most important one.
Sample Sentence- “Everything about Latin is known by Shawn Butler, et al.”
Way to Look Like an Imbecile- Using the English word “All” as in- “I know everything about Latin, I’ve read Socrates, et all.”

Tip #2: Per Se is the Latin phrase for “Through Itself.” It should be used to express the idea that something does or does not support an argument in and of itself.
Sample Sentence- “Knowing Latin per se does not make one smart.”
Way to Look Like an Imbecile- First, by NOT knowing what it means, as in – “I’m not a Latin Expert per se, but I know a few phrases.” This happens when people are trying to sound intellectual, but they really mean the phrase “as they say” or “so to speak.”
The Second is by mispelling it, as in – “I shouldn’t have tried to use Latin, but now it’s out of my hands, per say.”
I’ve also seen these: perse, persay, and even pursay. Wow.

Tip #3: i.e. is the abbreviation for “id est” meaning “that is.” It is really the most basic phrase ever created; the equivalent of “that is to say” or “I mean…”
Sample Sentence- “I love the Classics, i.e. Latin and Greek.”
People say it all the time in English and never have a problem. “Yeah, I read Plato, that is, I read The Republic by Plato.” See how it is getting more specific? That makes you sound smart!
How to Sound Like an Idiot- Now, try to use it to start a list, as in- “I’ve been to lots of countries, i.e. Italy and Greece.” It’s subtle, but trust me, it’s WRONG. What they are after is another phrase in Latin:

Tip#4: e.g. is the abbreviation for “exempli gratia” meaning “for example.” Another No-Brainer in English, but things get tricky when you don’t know what you’re saying and you’re trying to sound smart.
Sample Sentence- “Cicero’s best writings are actually speeches, e.g. On Behalf of Milo and Post Reditum in Senatu“

An interesting point just came to mind– Why even bother putting down any of these terms? In most cases, we’re saying the exact same words we would in English. You can’t even say they are abbreviations to save space. In the case of Pro Bono (For Free), you’re not even saving letters.

Here’s the new rule: If you don’t know what it means, don’t say it/ write it/ type it/ blog it/ link to it. That’s it. In fact, we are all just better off forgetting that Latin was ever a language at all. Let’s just be honest about it:

Latin is Smart People Secret Code.

So, like any secret code, all the club members should have a little codebook that we can flip to in order to decode our encrypted messages. I suppose that could be next week’s blog. Q.E.D.

Fun Fact: Latin is a Language Option on the Screens of the ATM Machines in Vatican City. This way the Cardinals can get some QuickCash. –Shawn Butler

I was asked by a friend to compile a list of the books that were important for him to read in order to be a Literate and Contributing member of modern culture.
This is my first attempt — The main criteria for this list was to cover the books that are referenced either directly or in allusion in the literary community. For obvious reasons, that turned out to include all the “staple” books that are required reading for middle school and high school students.
NOTE: This is not a listing of “great books,” or even “good books,” and not a list of my favorite books, which would be MUCH different. This list is designed to guide young readers in their desire to cover the [quote, unquote] literary basics.

In alphabetical order by the first non-“the” in the book title.

• 1984–George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair)
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer–Mark Twain
• A Farewell to Arms–Ernest Hemingway
• A Lesson Before Dying–Ernest J. Gaines
• A Separate Peace–John Knowles
• A Tale of Two Cities–Charles Dickens
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland–Lewis Carroll
• All the King’s Men–Robert Penn Warren
• The Ambassadors–Henry James
• An American Tragedy–Theodore Dreiser
• Animal Farm–George Orwell
• As I Lay Dying–William Faulkner
• Atlas Shrugged–Ayn Rand
• The Autobiography of Frederick Douglass
• Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman–Ernest J. Gaines
• The Awakening–Kate Chopin
• Beloved–Toni Morrison
• Bless Me, Ultima–Anaya Rudolfo
• Brave New World–Aldous Huxley
• The Bride Price–Buchi Emecheta
• Brideshead Revisited–Evelyn Waugh
• The Brothers Karamazov–Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• The Call of the Wild–Jack London
• Candide–Voltaire
• The Catcher in the Rye–J. D. Salinger
• Cat’s Cradle–Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
• Catch-22–Joseph Heller
• The Chosen–Chaim Potok
• The Clan of the Cave Bear–Jean Auel
• The Color Purple– Alice Walker
• The Count of Monte Cristo–Alexander Dumas
• Crime and Punishment–Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• Deliverance–James Dickey
• Democracy–Joan Didion
• The Divine Comedy–Dante
• Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?–Philip K. Dick
• Doctor Zhivago–Boris Pasternak
• Don Quixote–Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
• Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde–Robert Louis Stevenson
• Ellen Foster–Kaye Gibbons
• Empire of the Sun–J. G. Ballard
• The End of the Affair–Graham Greene
• Ender’s Game–Orson Scott Card
• Ethan Frome–Edith Wharton
• Faust–Goethe
• Flowers for Algernon–Daniel Keyes
• The Fountainhead–Ayn Rand
• Frankenstein–Mary Shelley
• The Giver–Lois Lowry
• Go Tell It on the Mountain–James Baldwin
• Gone with the Wind–Margaret Mitchell
• The Grapes of Wrath–John Steinbeck
• Great Expectations–Charles Dickens
• The Great Gatsby–F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Grendel–John Gardner
• Gulliver’s Travels–Jonathon Swift
• Heart of Darkness–Joseph Conrad
• The Hobbit–J. R. R. Tolkien
• House Made of Dawn–N. Scott Momaday
• In Country–Bobbie Ann Mason
• The Invisible Man–H. G. Wells
• Invisible Man–Ralph Ellison
• Ivanhoe–Sir Walter Scott
• Jane Eyre–Charlotte Bronte
• The Jungle–Upton Sinclair
• Kindred–Octavia Butler
• The Kitchen God’s Wife–Amy Tan
• The Last of the Mohicans–James Fenimore Cooper
• The Left Hand of Darkness–Ursula K. Le Guin
• Les Miserables–Victor Hugo
• Less Than Zero–Bret Easton Ellis
• Like Water for Chocolate–Laura Esquivel
• Lord of the Flies–William Golding
• Love Medicine–Louise Erdrich
• Moby Dick–Herman Melville
• Moll Flanders–Daniel Defoe
• The Naked and the Dead–Norman Mailer
• Of Mice and Men–John Steinbeck
• The Old Gringo–Carlos Fuentes
• The Old Man and the Sea–Ernest Hemingway
• On the Road–Jack Kerouac
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest–Ken Kesey
• Out of Africa–Isak Dinesen
• Pride and Prejudice–Jane Austen
• The Prince–Niccolo Machiavelli
• The Red Badge of Courage–Stephen Crane
• The Remains of the Day–Kazuo Ishiguro
• The Return of the Native–Thomas Hardy
• Robinson Crusoe–Daniel Defoe
• Roots: The Story of an American Family–Alex Haley
• The Scarlet Letter–Nathaniel Hawthorne
• The Screwtape Letters–C. S. Lewis
• Shogun: A Novel of Japan–James du Maresq Clavell
• Slaughterhouse Five–Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
• The Slave Dancer–Paula Fox
• Something Wicked this Way Comes–Ray Bradbury
• Song of Solomon–Toni Morrison
• The Sound and the Fury–William Faulkner
• The Stranger–Albert Camus
• Summer of My German Soldier–Bette Greene
• The Sun Also Rises–Ernest Hemingway
• The Sweet Hereafter–Russell Banks
• Ten Little Indians–Agatha Christie
• Tess of the d’Urbervilles–Thomas Hardy
• Their Eyes Were Watching God–Zora Neale Hurston
• Things Fall Apart–Chinua Achebe
• The Time Machine–H. G. Wells
• To Kill a Mockingbird–Harper Lee
• To the Lighthouse–Virginia Woolf
• Treason–Orson Scott Card
• Treasure Island–Robert Louis Stevenson
• V.–Thomas Pynchon
• War and Peace–Leo Tolstoy
• The Waste Land–T. S. Eliot
• Watership Down–Richard Adams
• The World According to Garp–John Irving
• Wuthering Heights–Emily Bronte

I was going to keep this list down to 100 books, but there are probably closer to 120. I would be interested to see submissions from readers, because I know I left off some that were important (i.e.: everybody’s read them). Scan through and see if your favorites are on the list.