Ex fumo dare lucem

This is a photo of the facade of the gas meter house which formally stood at Kendal gas works. When the gas works was demolished in 1969, the facade was preserved and was subsequently erected elsewhere in the town.

Ex fumo dare lucem means from smoke to give light, which is an apt motto for a gas works. Apparently, the line originally comes from the poet Horace.

Kendal's gas meter house of 1825 is not the only piece of nineteenth century infrastructure which has a Latin motto. Perth's waterworks of 1832 carries the motto aquam igne et aqua haurio.

ex prep with ablative from

fumus, -i m smoke

lux, lucis f light

Catena

 I have been a fan of Abba for a very long time, and Chiquitita is one of my favourite songs. The opening lines of the Spanish version caught my eye: "Chiquitita, dime por qué tu dolor hoy te encadena." In English, the words are "Chiquitita, tell me why your sadness imprisons you today."

The Spanish word encadena literally means enchains, and comes from the Latin word catena meaning a chain. Incidentally, in English we have the catenary arch in architecture and the catenary curve in mathematics.

catena, -ae f chain

dolor, -is m pain, grief

Deus Vult, Deo Volente

These two phrases are interesting because they involve the same noun, albeit in different cases, and different forms of the same verb.

Deus Vult means "God wills (it)." It was used as a rallying cry in 1096 during the First Crusade. Deus is the subject of the sentence and is in the nominative singular case. Vult is third person singular present indicative of volo, velle, volui, which is the verb to want.

Deo Volente means "God willing" and is the Latin equivalent of the Arabic inshallah. Deo is in the ablative case. Volente is the ablative case of the present participle volens of the verb volo, velle, volui. The phrase is an ablative absolute in which the participle is in agreement with the noun in the ablative case. The term absolute means that the phrase is independent of the rest of the sentence.

Deo volente is sometimes abbreviated d.v..

Foramen magnum

The foramen magnum is a large oval hole in the occipital bone of the skull through which the spinal cord passes. It is not the only foramina in the skull, but it is the largest. The position of the foramen magnum is highly significant in human evolution, as it moved forward as the successive species became better adapted for bipedalism.

foramen, foraminis n hole made by boring; hole

Filius non portabit iniquitatem patris

Ezekiel chapter 18, verse 20 makes a very profound point that is as relevant today as it was when the book of Ezekiel was written. In modern language, the verse endorses individual responsibility for actions rather than collective guilt of kin groups. To take a current example, this view stands in stark contradiction to the demands that the British taxpayers of today pay reparations for slavery that was ended in the British empire before our great grandparents were born.

In Latin, the full text of the verse is:

Anima quae peccaverit ipsa morietur: filius non portabit iniquitatem patris, et pater non portabit iniquitatem filii: iustitia iusti super eum erit, et impietas impii erit super eum.

In the English that is: "The soul that sinneth, the same shall die: the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, and the father shall not bear the iniquity of the son: the justice of the just shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him."

The key words from filius through to filii are really quite simple Latin:

filius, -i m son

pater, patris m father

porto, -are, -avi, -atum to bear or carry

portabit he will bear

iniquitas, iniquitatis f sin or crime

et and

Per Mare Per Terram,

Per mare per terram is the apt motto of the Royal Marines. It means by sea by land. The preposition per governs the accusative.

Interestingly, the English word marine is derived from the Latin adjective marinus, -a, -um of or pertaining to the sea, which is itself derived from the 3rd declension neuter noun mare, -is sea. Mare is cognate with the English mere meaning lake (e.g. Windermere), the German das Meer the sea and the French la mer also meaning the sea.

Ignoranti quem portum petat, nullus suus ventus est

The Stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger advises us that for the man who doesn't know which port he is making for, no wind is the right one. In other words, if you don't have an objective, you can't reach it. The idea of the modern English proverb - to fail to plan is to plan to fail - is not entirely unrelated.

Ignoranti is the dative singular of the adjective ignorans and means for the ignorant.

Quem is the masculine accusative singular of the relative pronoun qui, quae, quod.

Portum is the accusative singular of the noun portus, -us m a port, from which we get the English word port.

Petat is the third person singular present subjunctive of the third conjugation verb peto, petere, petivi, petitum, meaning among other things to make for.

Ventus, -i m wind is cognate with the French word le vent, the Spanish el viento and the English wind.