INTERESTING SHORT LATIN PHRASES

 

 

In September last year I wrote a blog on the Latin influence on English language. If you missed it please read it by clicking this hyperlink: https://surajitbrainwaves.blogspot.com/2020/09/latin-influence-on-english-language.html . By doing so you will enjoy this blog even more!

 

Latin is a difficult language for most but knowing a little bit of Latin can also prove to be quite useful to all the English speakers. In fact, you will stumble upon a great number of short Latin phrases as you watch TV and read books, as you visit an art gallery or museum, or even on a note left on the refrigerator by a family member. Surely, knowing exactly what these abbreviations mean and how to use them correctly will prove to be quite useful!

 

Latin is one of the most influential languages in history, no wonder traces of it can be found in most European languages even today. After all, it was the language of science and scholarship across Europe until the 19th century, as well as the universal language of prayer and worship for the Catholic Church. English too was greatly influenced by Latin, and we're sure you know that common words like "formula", "senior", "animal" and even "cactus" are all Latin borrowings. So let me talk about 8 interesting short Latin phrases you have been either regularly using or encountering once in a while reading English text:

 

1. Circa (abbreviated as c., ca.) In English, the word circa and its abbreviations are a way to state that an event took place or an object dates back to an approximate time. For example, when the specific year when an artist created a painting cannot be established, but the general period is known, you will see “circa 1560” instead of just “1560” written in a note next to its title in a museum or a publication. Essentially, circa is just another way to say "around." The meaning of this word is easy to remember as circa comes from the Latin word for describing something round - circum. As you may have noticed, several other English words, such as circle and circumference, stem from the same Latin root.

 

2. Id est (abbreviated as i.e.) Most people aren’t familiar with the full version of i.e., which is id est. The term can be translated from Latin as “that is”, and it usually precedes a more thorough explanation of the topic discussed in a sentence, just like the English phrase “in other words” or “namely”. Here’s an example: “Only one city, i.e., London, has hosted the Summer Olympics three times.” A common mistake people make when using i.e. is to only use it before a list, as in “Popular pets, i.e. dogs, cats, and birds, have lived in human homes for thousands of years,” much like you would use e.g. (or for example). Although you can use id est in that way, you can also describe or specify anything mentioned prior in a sentence with the help of this abbreviation.

 

3. Post scriptum (abbreviated as P.S.) Everyone who has ever received an email or a letter is familiar with P.S., i.e. that little note at the end that is written as an afterthought, as in, “P.S. My warmest wishes to your daughter and son-in law, I hear that they just recently got married.” But have you ever wondered what the letters P and S stand for? It’s a shortening of the Latin phrase Post Scriptum, which can be translated into English as "written after". You’d be surprised to find out that the humble P.S. has a long history in the English language - scientists found it in letters that date all the way back to the 1550s.

 

4. Videlicet (viz.) The abbreviation viz. stops many experienced readers in their tracks, and rightfully so, as it sees little use these days. Viz. is the abbreviation of videlicet, which in itself is a shortening of the Latin phrase videre licet, meaning "it is permitted to see". Like i.e., viz. is considered a synonym for "namely", and the difference between the two is very slight, so most people actually use the two interchangeably in sentences like the following, “Each symbol represents one of the four elements, viz. earth, air, fire, and water.” As you can see, viz. precedes a full list of words that specify the phrase that comes before it - in our case, it is the four elements.

 

5. Stat: Doctors are familiar with this word and with so many television programmes with medical themes others too are getting a taste of this. In an emergency situation, a doctor may say something like, “This patient needs 100 mg of steroids, stat!” From the context of the show, you’ve probably understood that stat means “immediately,” and if you have, you’d be absolutely right. Stat is a shortening of the Latin adverb statim, which means “instantly” or “immediately”. In reality, though, stat is mostly used in written directions to medical staff and is actually rarely uttered in emergency situations as all hospital TV shows attempt to convince us.

 

6. Nota bene (N.b.) You can sometimes find N.b. as a footnote, much like you would P.S. But how do these two abbreviations differ in use and meaning? Quite a lot, it turns out, as unlike postscript, N.b. is NOT an afterthought or a note on an entirely unrelated subject. In fact, it’s the opposite - the information written after N.b. is a noteworthy and often very important part of a message or text, which is exactly why it is mentioned separately. For example, you could write “N.b. This substance is highly flammable, so keep it out of the sun.” As for the etymology, N. b. stands for Nota bene, which can be translated as “note well”. In essence, when you see N.b. as a side note or a footnote, it means “pay attention!”

 

7. Et alia (et al.) Now, there’s a Latin phrase that’s very similar to et cetera, but it can only be used to list people. This phrase is et alia, but we pretty much only use its abbreviation - et al. - in English. Et al. always refers to people, and the most common place you will see this abbreviation is in texts that cite academic papers, e.g. “Psychodynamic theory (Sigmund Freud et al.), states that these defenses are a way of distancing ourselves from acknowledging unpleasant thoughts, feelings, and behaviors as we go through our lives.” Instead of writing “Sigmund Freud and others”, the author used “Sigmund Freud et al.”

 

8. Et cectra: Et cetera, better known as etc., which is a way to denote that list of things mentioned in a sentence isn’t exhaustive, as in, “Cruciferous vegetables like cabbage, broccoli, kale, etc. have risen in popularity recently due to their apparent cancer-fighting properties.” Romans themselves have actually taken it as it is from the Greek phrase "καὶ τὰ ἕτερα" (kai ta hetera), which literally means 'and the other things'.

CLUELESS CELEBRITIES AND AGENDA DRIVEN ACTIVISTS

 

Celebrities have an unenviable role to play in social media. They have to comment and take sides in issues that neither concern them, nor do they know anything about them. Climate change is one such topic and farmer’s protest is another. Social media has made them poster boys and girls and every time competing and contrasting echo chambers want them to air their views in their favour lest they will not hesitate to troll them and castigate them as sub-humans. Even Bharat Ratna Lata Mangeshkar and Sachin Tendulkar and the legendary Amitabh Bacchan are not out of the reach of their venomous spit!

The hypocrisy: The activism propounded in social media has the unique ability of creating the awe inspiring images of icons of righteousness like Great Thunbeg. She was so angry with the way that the elders were mistreating mother earth that she gave up going to school, sailed in an alleged “zero emission yacht” transatlantic since she refuses to fly, given the carbon footprint of air travel, and reached the Unite Nations office in New York to deliver the now famous “how dare you” speech. What the climate activists forgot to tell you however was that a crew of 5 to 7 people had to be flown transatlantic in order to bring this alleged zero emission yacht back to Europe with the associated  5 to 7 times increase in carbon emission!

Friends, you will have to understand that Greta Thunberg is not a person; she is a carefully crafted image of the left and left of centre activists of the world who have an agenda to fulfill so that they remain accountable to their sponsors. So it was not unsurprising when the same Greta Thunberg  wads into the Indian farm imbroglio—supporting farmers of Punjab and Haryana who not only are responsible for some of the worst annual carbon emissions anywhere on earth through their crop burning, but also for significant health problems, including asthma and cancer.

In the name of ‘green revolution’ these farmers have systematically destroyed crop diversity and hence our food security by going exclusively for water guzzling crops, which are of mediocre quality, which the government is forced to purchase paying minimum support price for our public distribution system. Their unsustainable irrigation practices will cause Punjab’s water table to get depleted in the next 10 to 15 years, and their rampant use of chemical fertilizers has poisoned the soil. As if this was not enough these farmers also grow Eucalyptus as a commercial crop and this extracts more water from the ground that anything else known to man, further playing havoc with our ground water. And now when you see Greta Thunberg and all the climate activists whom she represents oppose our farm laws you will have no difficulty in understanding the magnitude of their ignorance or the scale of their hypocrisy or  the conspiracy of destabilizing our democracy or all three.

The celebrity factor: Celebrities have an important role to play in any movement, but for that to happen there are a few preconditions. The celebrity must understand the issue thoroughly and their soul should endorse it. If they truly believe in what they are doing they can do winders. When a religious minority in our villages was discrediting our polio drops as a drug which will make the minorities infertile Amitabh Bacchan was roped in for his legendary ‘Do boond zindagi ki’ advertisement and his image was enough to bring the polio campaign back on rails and we eventually succeeded in eradication of the disease. Again it was the same star campaigner who spearheaded the campaign against open defecation by his ‘Darwaza bandh to bimari bandh’ call in our now famous ‘Swachata Abhiyan’ and we succeeded in making most of the country open defecation free.

The problem crops up when the celebrities endorse a movement without understanding what the movement is all about. How many right wing news channels and Hollywood stars endorsed the eccentricities of Donald Trump? They even chose to find faults with the ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement and were fanatically pitching for ‘Make America Great Again’ and ‘Proud Boys’ all the way. Then Trump’s goons laid siege on the U.S. Capitol, ransacked it and searched frantically for Vice President Mike Pence to hang him! Now that they have made a complete fool of themselves, where are those celebrities today?

So every time a new law is passed, celebrities need not take sides. Not until they have not understood the law in all 360 degrees. This is not their job. They are experts in some other field of life. They need not be expert in agriculture, military warfare, refugee crisis, terrorism, and marriage and divorce laws. If they have a large social media following, it comes with an even larger responsibility. If their half cooked half baked knowledge leads to their audience getting misinformed, they cannot absolve themselves of their responsibility. Worse still, if because of their ignorance, groups with vested interest take them for a ride, they will have nowhere to hide!

Misuse of Celebrity status: Rihanna’s tweet supporting the farmers’ agitation in India is a perfect example of how vested interest groups are using the celebrities. She naturally knows nothing about the three new farm laws and neither is she expected to know. A  certain Mo Dhaliwal, the founder of the Canada-based Poetic Justice Foundation (PJF) which has Khalistani links, and that also created the controversial ‘toolkit’ tweeted by Greta Thunberg, is one of the Directors of the PR firm – Skyrocket which allegedly paid $2.5 million (Rs 18 crore) to Rihanna for this tweet. Khalistanis obviously care two hoots about the farm laws, they just want to destabilise Punjab for their own nefarious reasons and Rihanna fell for it hook line and sinker! Now Shiv Sena wants to misuse Bollywood and cricket celebrities, but they are smart and not falling for their bait.

Khalistan, for those who do not know or do not remember, was a violent movement behind waves of terror attacks in the ’80s, including the assassination of then India Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Indian agencies have repeatedly flagged how Pakistan’s ISI is trying to re-organise the movement from foreign soil, most prominently Canada, the US and the UK.

Incidentally Rihanna, who considers herself to be a climate activist, or at least her tweets make her look like one, has a few skeletons in her cupboard.  Her love for animal hide can be seen in the internet. There are enough photos of her to have butchered an entire herd of cows to satiate her fashion needs. Her fleet of cars includes Chevrolet Suburban SUV, two Porsches (a 997 Turbo and 911 Turbo S), a Lamborghini Aventador, a Mercedes SLR McLaren, and a Mercedes Maybach limousine. Now nobody would ever describe them as remotely sustainable or remotely eco-friendly.

Agenda driven Celebrities: While you can excuse High School dropouts like Greta and Rihanna for not understanding the three Indian farm laws when educated intellectuals choose to oppose the law only because they oppose Prime Minister Modi ther is a problem. Celebrities like prominent historian Mr. Ramchandra Guha, who cannot be clueless about the environmental consequences of Punjab’s unsustainable farming practices are also fighting these laws tooth and nail. He is one of the most authoritative environmental historians of India. While one would expect him to exercise a calming influence on clueless celebrities, clueless celebrities are influencing scholars like him to tacitly support the ecocide in Punjab through calculated and deliberate acts of omission. And this suits his anti-Modi stance and endears him to his echo-chamber in the social media.

Agenda driven Climate activists: Our own home grown agenda driven climate activists Disha Ravi, Nikita Jacob and Shantanu Muluk too are agenda driven. Otherwise despite working in the climate sphere for a few years now why are they unfamiliar with the climate rot perpetrated by the Punjab farmers? Why are they in cahoots with Mo Dhaliwal, a Canadian Indian who is an open supporter of the banned terror movement asking for a separate Khalistan? Why were they planning to target India’s symbols like tea and yoga? Why was the toolkit talking about physical action outside Indian embassies and offices? Did Disha, Nikita and Shantanu not see that the document, purportedly created by themselves, called for “economic warfare against India and certain Indian companies”? Is this just a contrarian point of view that should be considered under ‘freedom of expression’ or is this open treason and sedition?

The violence that happened on India’s Republic Day on January 26 could not have been spontaneous. It takes immense planning and resources to push hundreds of armed lumpens posed as farmers into Delhi. It is very important to understand who the people who authored this toolkit are. Why are the same faces cropping up in all agitations against Triple Talaq, Article 370, CAA and now farm laws? Who is sponsoring them? Where is the money coming from? This is a dangerous ongoing saga and the ignorant celebrities should stay away from this lest they burn their fingers.

The 2006 cult classic ‘Idiocracy’ had drawn linkages between celebrities and environmental collapse, long before this farce played out on Twitter and TV. The movie predicted that the climate will only get worse if we listen to the policy prescriptions of these shockingly untutored “celebrities” instead of environment experts. When a comedy movie predicts the future of climate change more accurately than seasoned experts, you know you’re in serious trouble.

SIESTA – THE MAGIC MIDDAY 40 WINKS!

 

If you are a P.G. Woodhouse buff you must know that “Stolen kisses and afternoon naps, like stolen reading, are always the sweetest and most refreshing.”  We will leave the stolen kisses for another day and talk about the afternoon naps today.

You’ve just finished your lunch. You are about to resume your work, but you just can’t concentrate. Your eyes droop and you feel lazy and sleepy. All you can imagine is a bed where you can lie down peacefully and doze off. Does this scenario sound far too familiar? Don't worry, you are not alone. Feeling drowsy after you eat, especially after lunch, is a common experience. Daytime sleepiness can be frustrating as it makes us feel lethargic and affects our productiveness during the middle of the day but it seems the world has become a Nap-a-valley!

The siesta is historically common throughout the Mediterranean and Southern Europe and Mainland China. It is the traditional daytime sleep of Spain and, through Spanish influence, the Philippines, and many Hispanic American countries. In Dalmatia (coastal Croatia), the traditional afternoon nap is known as pižolot (from Venetian pixolotto). The Spanish word siesta derives originally from the Latin word hora sexta "sixth hour" (counting from dawn, hence "midday rest"). 

In some parts of the world, life practically comes to a grinding halt in the early afternoon. People head home from work for a siesta, as it’s known in Spain, or a riposo, as it’s called in Italy. The Parisians call it ‘baporiyu’, a noon-time clandestine quickie, which keeps you fresh and alert for the rest of the day.

Whether that means a short nap of 20 minutes (the traditional meaning of the word siesta) or a major mid-afternoon break varies from one country to another. But in many parts of the world—including Greece, the Philippines, Mexico, Costa Rica, Ecuador, and Nigeria—naps are seamlessly woven into the tapestry of everyday life.

History and cultural variation:

The tradition began as a necessity in some parts of the world, where, in the afternoon, the heat reaches its peak and it becomes too hot to be outside. That temperature climb combined with a heavy mid-day meal would send residents retreating to the comforts of home, where they could take a rest and wait for the heat to ease up. Over time, different cultures have tweaked the napping habit to suit their preferences. Some examples:

·         In China: Workers often take a break after lunch and put their heads on their desks for an hour-long nap. It’s considered a Constitutional right.

·         In Italy: The riposo may begin anytime between noon and 1:30pm and run until 2:30pm to 4:00pm. Businesses shut down, and public venues like museums and churches lock their doors so their employees can go home for a leisurely lunch and a snooze.

·         In Spain: The siesta is deeply ingrained, as businesses often close for hours to accommodate the mid-day rest. While the siesta can span two hours, only a fraction of the time is actually spent napping; first, there’s lunch with family and friends, then a rest. Because of the mid-day break, people often work later into the evening.

·         In the Middle East: Many schools make this sieste mandatory so the kids do not have to work when the temperature in the classroom is close to 30 or 35 ºC. Arabs love their siesta as the hot climate of the Arab Peninsula induces midday drowsiness.

·         In the U.S., napping isn’t quite a cultural tradition—at least not yet. But they’re gradually moving closer to that lifestyle. Some big-name companies (like Google) are becoming increasingly nap-friendly, largely because they believe that it increases productivity. 

The Indian scenario:

Bengalis love their siesta as much as they love mustard hilsa, Rabindra Sangeet, and rasogulla. A real Bengali would love to have bhaat-ghoom, as it’s said in Bangla (bhaat: rice/ghoom: sleep). Assam, Odisha and Bihar too get a bit snoozey and go slow in afternoon post lunch session and Goa comes to a complete halt!

Siesta has health benefits as well. In Ayurveda it’s known as Vaamkukshi and is recommended to those who suffer from chronic constipation, indigestion and arthritis. But it mustn’t exceed 30 minutes. The Greek explorer and traveller Megasthenes, who came to India more than two millennia ago, wrote in his book Indica that the people of India loved to sleep during day-time, especially after taking the midday meals. He further said that these people are like the Greeks, who also loved a siesta! Greeks even had a goddess, who they believed induced afternoon drowsiness!

The Science

Our pancreas produces insulin to regulate blood sugar levels. A heavy meal leads to a higher production of insulin which spikes our blood sugar levels. An increase in insulin results in more sleep hormones being produced by our body, which eventually get converted into serotonin (the key hormone that stabilizes our mood) and melatonin (a hormone that is produced in response to darkness) in our brain. This can ultimately induce sleepiness. Furthermore, the number of carbohydrates we eat at lunch can also affect how sluggish we feel afterward. For instance, carbohydrate-containing foods like bread, pasta, rice, and potatoes stimulate the production of serotonin, which can also cause us to feel sleepy. Other factors that might contribute to your daytime sleepiness are irregular sleeping patterns at night or reduced amounts of physical activity.

Health Benefits

Napping offers various benefits for healthy adults, including:

• Relaxation 
• Reduced fatigue 
• Increased alertness - A NASA study on sleepy military pilots and astronauts found that a 40-minute nap improved performance by 34 percent and alertness 100 percent 
• Improved mood. 
• Lowers blood pressure - with a 37 percent reduction in coronary mortality, possibly because of reduced cardiovascular stress associated with daytime sleep 
• Improved performance - quicker reaction time and better memory. In one study, participants who napped regularly for 10-, 20-, and 30-minute periods improved their performance on cognitive tests of memory and vigilance conducted in the subsequent two and a half hours. While those who napped more than 20 minutes suffered from grogginess, the 10-minute nappers experienced an immediate boost in performance. 
• Calms the nerves - A University of California, Berkeley study found that a 90-minute nap can potentially keep you calm. 
• Enhances creativity - The mind loves a nap. Daytime sleep can enhance creative thinking, boost cognitive processing, improve memory recall and generally clear out the cobwebs 
• Boosts willpower

So there are good reasons to do it! Science proves that napping lowers stress, increases energy and enhances your mood when you haven't had enough sleep at night. It can even improve creativity and productivity.

A short, 20-minute nap can improve alertness and performance, plus your brain stays in the lightest REM-stage (Rapid Eye Movement stage) of sleep. If you nap longer – 30- to 60-minutes – you run the risk of waking up groggy. Those are the times when you would have been better to not nap at all! If a longer snooze is more your style, aim for at least 90 minutes. That gives your body time to get through a full sleep cycle, leaving you more energized.

Let me end the discussion about the afternoon nap with a mention of Urdu poet Daagh Dehalv who compared a pleasurable siesta to accidentally holding a damsel’s tender and chiseled finger, Ek halki-si jhapki, jyon haath aayee kisi naazneen ki ungli...