Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Alright, so I've held this in for almost the last two weeks because of the blog hoopla (thanks Jeremy for creating a new one for us!). At work two weekends ago, one of the older kids who comes was asking a teacher what vice versa meant. The teacher didn't know what it meant, so she asked me because I was standing near their table. Of the top of my head, I told him what it meant and said it was Latin, praying that I was right. I came home to look it up in case I had to tell the boy if I was wrong, and what do you know, I was right. Sure, everyone probably knew that, but I didn't.

Wikipedia has a nice little entry about vice versa, along with some other Latin phrases. I know Wikipedia is not the best source for information, but it worked for me this time around. Here is where you can find out about vice versa: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_versa#vice_versa And answers.com provided me with a cool definition with how it is derived from Latin:

vice versa: With the order or meaning reversed; conversely.

[Latin vice versā : vice, ablative of *vix, position + versā, feminine ablative of versus.]

And now we know that versus is 5th declension. Yeah, I'm a nerd, I thought this was cool.


Olivia H.

3 comments:

E Pluribus Unum said...

Olivia-

Cool posting! perhaps you aren't such a nerd after all, since VERSUS is 4th declension...

Tomorrow: which of the three 5th declension nouns will be on the quiz? ah, the excitement!

EM.

Olivia said...

I meant to say 4th, I promise. When I typed of this entry, I was working on three other things. I was a tired nerd. :)

Olivia

E Pluribus Unum said...

haha.... wow, nerd wars... KOOL! lol... anywho, you are welcome, the new blog was a joint effort by Ms.E and myself, besides I kinda messed up the first one anyways (unintentionally!)...