Mother in Law: Et cetera ad nauseam – why I am fed up with Latin

In 2004 I was lucky enough to get tickets to see Simon & Garfunkel on a beautiful, balmy night in Hyde Park. Simon goes with Springsteen and Steinbeck at the top of my ‘using words to devastatingly beautiful effect’ list. I was temping at the time and when I told Gary, a middle-aged man in the office, where I was going, he said ‘I saw The Quo last year’.

‘Did you,’ I replied after a pause, confused as to why one should be mentioned in the same conversation as the other. Status Quo (I’m not cool enough to call them ‘The Quo’ like Gary), of course, have their fans and interestingly were one of my only early brushes with Latin.

My dad went to a grammar school in the 60s and I remember him telling me that inside his second-hand Latin book someone had written ‘Latin is a dead language, as dead as dead can be. It killed the Roman Empire and now it’s killing me.’ It was dead 60 years ago when my dad studied it; it was dead 1,500 years before that.

I will tell you the conclusion of this article right now: Latin needs to go.

I went to a local comprehensive where I literally learned more swear words than Latin words. I got the best GCSE results in the school, and in the sixth form I went to after that. I guarantee I read more Bronte and Austen than anyone else there. I mean, my mother’s intense continual rewatching of the BBC’s Pride & Prejudice helped ignite my enthusiasm but I devoured my English Literature A-level whole. But because it was a modern, state education, there was no Latin.

Jump forward to my red-brick law degree. Everyone had the same academic results as me but some people knew what inter alia meant. Quite simply, that was the difference between us.

Remember, in those days I could not ask Alexa what these things meant. So, imagine me – and lots of you won’t have to imagine – reading a subject I’ve never been taught before, in a city I’ve never lived in before, with people I’ve never met before where every 20th word in a textbook or judgment is in A FOREIGN LANGUAGE THAT NO ONE SPEAKS. If it wasn’t inter alia it was prima facie or per se or ex parte or verbatim or circa (made even more confusing by being shortened to c.) These are just a few that crop up just in the context of wills, tax and probate:

• ad colligenda bona – ‘to collect the goods’– a grant of probate to deal with interim matters such as selling property, could easily switch to ‘interim’ or ‘emergency’ grant;
• ad valorem – ‘according to the value’– usually used in the context of a tax such as VAT where the tax is related to the value;
• affidavit – ‘he has sworn’– a sworn statement;
• caveat – ‘may he beware’ – a block on a grant of probate being taken out, or more generally a warning – which is super-clear because to remove a caveat someone has to file a warning (facepalm);
• de minimis – ‘about the smallest things’– usually relates to a rule where no one cares (eg tax reporting) because the value is below a certain amount;
• in absentia – ‘in absence’– where a party is absent from the proceedings;
• inter vivos – ‘between the living’– for example a lifetime gift, as opposed to a gift in a will;
• jus – ‘law’ – not a thin gravy;
• per stirpes – ‘by branch’– a favourite of all clients trying to understand their wills – meaning going down the branches of a family tree.

That is just a selection from one small area of law. We then have another group of Latin phrases – ones that I have had to google when reading advice from counsel. You know, the stuff they just throw in – either to sound good or because everyone else they speak to on a daily basis was taught Latin.

• Magnum opus – a person’s masterpiece;
• A priori – based on a theory;
• In toto – all of it;
• Sui generis – of its own kind.

While I have been looking at Latin phrases online, I have realised that there is another group – ones that I have mainly only ever heard my mum use:

• In loco parentis – used somewhat dramatically when I had friends over;
• Quid pro quo – my brother hits me, I hit him back;
• Terra firma – every time we got off an aeroplane;
• Persona non grata – the man next door whose dog bit my brother;
• Compos mentis – regularly used in discussions about my gran;
• Ad nauseam – the number of times she watched a wet Colin Firth.

Then, of course, there are the words that we all just accept. Alibi, agenda, CV, etc, ad hoc, pro rata, bona fide, post mortem, vice versa, versus. But, of course, there are still words that do what they say on the tin we could use instead. English words. I get that Latin has a role in linguistics and maybe if you want to be the next Simon, Springsteen or Steinbeck you would do well to examine the way words and language is made up and continues to evolve. But as for lawyers, don’t forget that some kids – the kids we want and need in the profession – have to scrabble their way up the education ladder by hook or by crook. They don’t need more barriers. And, I wonder how quickly we could train lawyers, doctors and (oddly) gardeners if they didn’t have to learn the Latin names for things.

In a world where we are signing off our emails with our pronouns to ensure we are being inclusive towards a very, very small percentage of the population, how about we make a point to be inclusive towards the 90% of us who didn’t have a school with a Latin teacher, and ditch the whole lot. And maybe Status Quo too, while we are at it.

Some facts and identities have been altered in the above article