Monday, September 11, 2006

Conversations With My Mother, Part 1

INT. CHATEAU QUINQUIREME - DAY


My Mum and I are sitting in the living room.

ME: I've got to write some text to go on some pretend playing cards, that my client's going to send out in an envelope that looks like a sleeve. Look.

I hand mum the mock-up of the playing cards, which have that 'lorem ipsum' placeholder text printed on them.

MUM (in the manner of the Pope reciting the Nunc Dimittis*): Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...consectet tempor incidunt...ut lab ore et dolore veniami...

ME: Yes, that's not the real text.

MUM: Quis nostrud exercitation...ullar com modo consequat...duis autem vel esse...

I disappear into the kitchen and return some minutes later with a cup of tea.

MUM: In voluptare velit esse molestare...so tum toesne legume...duis autem vel esse molestaire con...I'll say it's a con.

ME: Yes, that's not the real text, it's just...

MUM: Tum toesn legume...that's not Latin...odioque civiuidia...duis autem...This is nonsense. I should charge double if I were you.

ME: I think I will.


* Or, you know, another one of those chanty Latin incantations. I don't know, I'm a protestant, me.

25 comments:

Lorna said...

It's a pity it didn't have Etaoin Shrdlu on it as well as lorem ipsum: Celtic liturgy, perhaps, to go with the Latin? ;)

vw: ohelep. A plaintive cry from my computer?

Spinsterella said...

Was puzzled - followed links - am now enlightened.

You really do learn a lot from this blogging malarky.

cello said...

As an ex-Catholic atheist,but occasional singer in churches, I think you are more likely to encounter a Nunc Dimittis within an Anglican Evensong. You need an Angelus or a Magnificat for the Cats.

patroclus said...

Ooh, now I'm learning things too, thanks cello.

Unknown said...

Sounds far more impressive than the drivel I have burned into my brain from Upper Fourth Latin: Metella in atrio sedet.

That's pretty much it.

Del said...

Caecilius est in horto. A year's worth of Latin, that. Oh, and 'Carpe Diem', which i assume relates in some way to carpet bombing.

FirstNations said...

Yog Sothoth! N'gai!
Shub Niggurrath!
In the seaweed garlanded temples of sunken R'lyeh great Cthulhu lies dreaming!
N'gai!

beats lorem ipsum all to crap.
well it does.

James Henry said...

Blimey, Cthonic rituals smuggled into advertising placeholder text! Lovecraft would be prould of you, First Nations.

Remember, according to the game Call of Cthulhu "attempting to destroy Cthulhu with nuclear weapons will only result in him reforming fifteen minutes later, and now highly radioactive.' And presumably annoyed.

Tim F said...

Protestants should be careful in France. Wasn't so long ago they tended to get lynched.

Well, 400-odd years ago.

WV: fttpmnci Welsh simians available on braodband.

patroclus said...

Yup, this is pretty much how I saw this comments thread shaping up.

Now I'm wanting to mount a Shock and Awe-style assault on Cthulhu's seaweed-garlanded temple, using an army of 400 Welsh simians led by Simon de Montfort, with 'Caecilius est in horto' as the codeword to start dropping leaflets printed with the Celtic liturgy, and if that doesn't work, then 'Metella in atrio sedet' as the codeword to start the carpet-bombing attack.

I don't think I'm properly awake.

These playing cards are going to turn out really well, then.

Billy said...

Hare Krishna Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna Hare Hare
Hare Rama Hare Rama
Rama Rama Hare Hare

Billy said...

I love a nice bit of Sanskrit

Lorna said...

'Carpe Diem' means the day of the fish, as any fule kno.

Anonymous said...

I read the flopsy bunnies in latin once Flopsus, Mopsus and ehm the other one

Urban Chick said...

that's just the sort of thing my dad would do

*slopes of trilling 'ex maria virgine' la la la*

Anonymous said...

Flopsus, mopsus and cottontailus realdoc

'mgggjvaw' parrot with toothache? these word verifications are mindbending...

Lorna said...

There's also 'Ursus nomine Padington', in which the hero hails from Peruvia Obscurantissima...

Lorna said...

Paddington, with 2 Ds. Stupid Lorna.

Unknown said...

Homo sapiens non urinat in ventum. Seen on a building near the Leidseplein in Amsterdam.

patroclus said...

Let's not forget Winnie Ille Pu.

Wyndham said...

Um,

*Just when i thought i was out they pull me back in!*

DavetheF said...

Tum toesn legume -- I think it's a disguised version of tum, toes, 'n leg. Ume(You me?)

Hey, what if this is CODE, someone trying to give a message ... haven't I got anything better to do?

DavetheF said...

Orbi non sufficit -- James Bond family motto (the world is not enough).
I had to learn Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars (veni, vidi, vici and all that) and Virgil's bloody Aeneid at school.

patroclus said...

Hey, no slating of the Aeneid, without it I wouldn't have a name.

Also: what if this is CODE, someone trying to give a message

This really made me laugh. Actually my blog is all written in code; the real, important content disguised as meaningless spam about figs and Picts and Adorno. Patroclus's entire life is clearly just a cipher for some other, more real, more meaningful life.

Oo, it's all gone a bit The Matrix. I think I'll go out for a walk in the 'real' world.

DavetheF said...

Ave, Patroclus. Mea maxima culpa.

It's just that Latin was made into a grindingly boring class at our school.
Still, I am grateful simply because it gave me a foundation to glimpse the foundations of our own tongue. I love words, me.