Critics Confront Jeff Lindsay at "Mormanity"

[Everybody Wang Chung]

I am sure that somebody could read it all in Latin over a summer or, let's say, over a couple of years. But unless that were the only thing you were doing, I don't think you'd get much out of it at all. You might as well speed read it: "it's about God," Mr. Ostler summarized.

Rumor has it that Blake started studying Latin at a very early age. I was able to find a yearbook photo of him from his preschool Latin class:

[Dr Exiled]

Speaking of being confronted by critics, I read this exchange tonight:
I am nonplussed by this. This is an exchange between educated adults, right? Have I been out too long? How is it possible to give an answer like that about "science" with a straight face?

Peterson is playing the shrinking geography game. In his mind, the Book of Mormon cannot be proven false because its people lived in an undiscovered corner of the New World. That corner gets smaller and smaller all the time, thus fitting better and better with the science. Daniel Peterson once proudly claimed that he rejoiced in the DNA evidence because it proved his theories regarding the Book of Mormon true. The conflict between what the Book of Mormon actually claims (as opposed to the apologetic lies), and the scientific consensus, is alive and well.

Microscopic Nephites ... it's going there ... stay tuned

[Everybody Wang Chung]

Microscopic Nephites ... it's going there ... stay tuned

Either that or the Mopologists will eventually push the Leprechaun Theory, otherwise known as the Wee Folk Theory.

The Wee Folk Theory easily explains why gold was the metal of choice for the plates. Never get between a Wee Folk and his pot of gold.

[Symmachus]

Rumor has it that Blake started studying Latin at a very early age. I was able to find a yearbook photo of him from his preschool Latin class:

Urbani, servate uxores: moechum calvom adducimus.
Aurum in Gallia effutuisti, hic sumpsisti mutuum.

[Kishkumen]

Microscopic Nephites ... it's going there ... stay tuned

Ah, my Limited Stature Theory™ of Book of Mormon civilizations.

[Kishkumen]

Urbani, servate uxores: moechum calvom adducimus.
Aurum in Gallia effutuisti, hic sumpsisti mutuum.

I don't know, that looks like a Claudian 'do to me.

[Chap]

OK, procul, o procul este profani and all that.

But maybe we should tell the plebs here that those words are what Julius Caesar's troops sang as they marched through Rome to celebrate his formal Triumph after the conquest of Gaul. The usual translation is:

"Home we bring our bald whoremonger;
Romans, lock your wives away!
All the bags of gold you lent him
Went his Gallic tarts to pay."

It was customary for soldiers to sing rude songs on such occasions, as no doubt they would gladly do today if permitted.

[Symmachus]

Microscopic Nephites ... it's going there ... stay tuned

Ah, my Limited Stature Theory™ of Book of Mormon civilizations.

It would explain so much.

I don't know, that looks like a Claudian 'do to me.

Yes, well I'm a very deep person with penetrating moral insight, so I understand that looks can be deceiving—I read that in a book—and it is what's underneath the 'do that counts, certainly in Caesar's case here, and if Wang Chung is right, also in Mr. Ostler's.

"Home we bring our bald whoremonger;
Romans, lock your wives away!
All the bags of gold you lent him
Went his Gallic tarts to pay."

Thank you for that translation, appropriately moderated for a family-friendly institution like Cassius. It is at once free (moechus I would think is rather more banal than "whoremonger") and restrained (the explicit nature of effutuisti is Victorianized here).

For the curious, the key to the humor of these lines, from Suetonius, is all about the hair (Caesar, calvom, moechus). I think then you can figure out their relevance as a response to Wang Chung portrait gallery of the brilliant Latinist, Mr. Ostler.

[Chap]

Thank you for that translation, appropriately moderated for a family-friendly institution like Cassius. It is at once free (moechus I would think is rather more banal than "whoremonger") and restrained (the explicit nature of effutuisti is Victorianized here).

To avoid any suspicion of plagiarism - the translation is of course by Robert Graves not by me. I suspect the departures from the literal 'fornicator' and 'shagged out' were made for the sake of the producing rhyme and meter that an English reader might have imagined soldiers singing as they marched along, rather than to spare the reader's blushes.

[Symmachus]

To avoid any suspicion of plagiarism - the translation is of course by Robert Graves not by me. I suspect the departures from the literal 'fornicator' and 'shagged out' were made for the sake of the producing rhyme and meter that an English reader might have imagined soldiers singing as they marched along, rather than to spare the reader's blushes.

Thank you for that clarification, but are you sure it wasn't because the Moon Goddess couldn't suffer such blushes? There is a very interesting ogham inscription that can be interpreted this way. Give me some time and a little numerology, and I'm sure all also be able to find some Gaulish to use, which will return us to Caesar. While I'm at it, I'll prove something about the Jaredites, so that will bring us back to Ostler.

Mormon apologetics...