If you took a walk by a Swiss lake in the 1930s—the peak time for the writing of Latin grammar books—you could hardly fail to bump into knots of bespectacled millionaires swapping gags about ablative absolutes and rogue gerundives. Here, footling around in a rowing boat in the shallows of Lake Geneva, was Benjamin Hall Kennedy, the original writer of the Primer, in deep conversation over cognate accusatives with the man who revised it in 1930, Sir James Mountford. There was Liddell, deep in conversation over a glühwein with Scott about the correct Greek word for the most terrible of Athenian punishments—”to stuff a radish up the fundament” (raphanidosis, by the way).
Harry Mount, Carpe Diem: How to Become a Latin Lover (via niconarsi)
22 Notes