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Carpe Diem: Put A Little Latin in Your Life (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: third declension, second declension, Singular Plural, New York, Julius Caesar (more...)

3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)

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Amo, Amas, Amat and More (Hudson Group Books) by Eugene H. Ehrlich
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"I can't remember the last time I conjugated with such an expert." -- Lynne Truss, author of Eats, Shoots & Leave

Product Description

Liber prosperissimus et mirabilis ex Britannia ad Americam tandem advenit! Umquam vexatus es quando homo inritans "sine qua non" aut "mea culpa" dicit? Aut postmeridiana tempora vetera, quando verba obscura ediscere conatus es, terrunt?

Nil desperandum!

Linguae Latinae hoc in itinere iucundo, qui omnia ex lectione grammatica ab Monte Pythone ad Angelinae Jolia in pelle notas et omnia optima in historiae litteratae annis duo milliis ex poese et litteris excerpta habet, Henricus Mons pulvem ex libellis odiosis deterget et in linguam maximam in aeternum vitam respirat.

The phenomenal bestseller from the U.K. finally arrives in the States! Have you even found yourself irritated when a sine qua non or a mea culpa is thrown into the conversation by a particularly annoying person? Or do distant memories of afternoons spent struggling to learn obscure verbs fill you with dread?

Never fear!

In this delightful guided tour of Latin, which features everything from a Monty Python grammar lesson to Angelina Jolie's tattoo and all the best snippets of prose and poetry from two thousand years of literary history, Harry Mount wipes the dust off those boring primers and breathes life back into the greatest language of them all.

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Product Details

Hardcover: 272 pages
Publisher: Hyperion; Bilingual edition (November 6, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1401322344
ISBN-13: 978-1401322342
Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.6 x 1 inches
Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #268,287 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Inside This Book (learn more)

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
third declension, second declension

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Singular Plural, New York, Julius Caesar, Prince Charles, Kingsley Amis, Richard Burton, Roman Republic, The Secret History, Martin Amis, Maison Carr�e, Feminine Neuter, Ivy League, Aron Lowder, City of London, Pope Gregory, Vestal Virgins, Cameron Diaz, Virgin Mary, Wanker's Latin, Peter O'Toole, Praetorian Guard, Horace's Odes, The Lord, Arch of Titus, Dean Martin

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	76% buy the item featured on this page: Carpe Diem: Put A Little Latin in Your Life 3.4 out of 5 stars (12) $19.95
	8% buy Getting Started with Latin: Beginning Latin for Homeschoolers and Self-Taught Students of Any Age 4.9 out of 5 stars (49) $17.95
	7% buy Amo, Amas, Amat and More (Hudson Group Books) 4.8 out of 5 stars (14) $10.80
	4% buy A Dictionary of Latin Words and Phrases 4.7 out of 5 stars (3) $10.17

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Customer Reviews

12 Reviews

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
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3.4 out of 5 stars (12 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

92 of 96 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fun and enjoyable, but a bit sloppily done, November 15, 2007

By	Johnny McGuy (USA) - See all my reviews

I just got a copy of this book, which apparently has sold really well in England. As a Latin teacher, I'm all for anything that might benefit the cause, and this is definitely a good book to give to people who don't know anything about Latin and so don't understand its difficulties and rewards. I know another teacher who has considered recommending this to parents of his students, in part so that they can understand how studying Latin differs from studying modern languages. Even if you don't have a child, and are just curious as to what all the fuss about Latin is, it's worth reading this.

For those who took Latin in high school, this should awake (hopefully pleasant) memories, and might help you shake off the cobwebs. It can serve as a nice little refresher, and there's enough Latin in there (always translated) to remind you how much you still know.

Part of the reason that I didn't give the book a higher rating is that there are a few too many mistakes for my taste. While I would not expect a book such as this to give extended grammatical explanations, I would expect the grammar it does cover to be correct, and such is not always the case. If you have no interest in Latin grammar, you can stop reading this review now; suffice it to say that this is a good, but not perfect book, that would benefit greatly from a corrected second edition.

If you are interested in grammar, however, here are a few of the mistakes I found (I didn't start jotting down page numbers until about halfway through the book):

132 - "So the supine always ends in -um...." The supine also can end in -u (when it is an ablative, as opposed to an accusative in -um); he uses such a supine on 115, in 'mirabile dictu' and 'horribile dictu.'

156 - In his chart for the perfect passive, he does not change 'amatus' to 'amati' and 'monitus' to 'moniti,' etc.

179 - he defines 'pro' as "before, in front of," which is fine, though mentioning that it can also mean "on behalf of" would have helped with things like 'pro bono,' and an even fuller discussion of this preposition would have helped with phrases like 'quid pro quo.' I can understand the desire not to overload the reader with definitions, but I think that he could have made a more sensible choice here.

193 - his chart suggests that the interrogative pronoun 'quis, quid' has separate forms in the singular for the masculine and feminine, though this is not the case. Thus his forms 'quam' and 'qua' do not technically exist (for this word, at least).

196 - this has nothing to do with grammar, but for some reason he gives 'miror, -ari' in his vocabulary list for a sentence though no form of that word appears in that sentence.

221 - he says of 'de gustibus non est disputandum,' "A rare use of the gerund," when it is, in fact, a gerundive. He does, however, translate it properly.

The above are some of the most glaring mistakes, and while none of them are all that serious, there's little excuse for them to be there. They would bother me more, I suppose, if I thought that people were going to learn Latin only from this book, but I'm not quite sure that such a thing would be possible (except for the brightest and most motivated).

All in all, it's a nice little book, and I think it does a good job of showcasing what makes Latin unique.

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12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great fun!, December 4, 2007

By	Helen Hancox "Auntie Helen" (Essex, England) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This book isn't one of those frighteningly complex-looking book full of tables, rules and vast reams of incomprehensible text; Carpe Diem is, instead, an amusing book with lots of prose discussing how we view Latin in today's world, as well as some amusing reminiscences of Harry Mount's various Latin teachers, architectural history and more. The prose is well written and informative with a light touch and referring to people including David Beckham, Angelina Jolie, various US presidents and, of course, lots of dead people from the classical era, although hints of his public school education come through in some of the language he uses. Nestled within this are occasional tables with Latin declensions or conjugations, very short lists of vocabulary, occasional photographs and some Latin quotations (always translated).

This book works just as well for people who don't have any Latin at all; whilst they'll probably skim through the various noun, verb and adjective tables there is still lots of Latin scattered amongst the prose (always explained) which makes you realise how many Latin words we actually use. It's not entirely clear who this book is for, as it's not a serious scholarly work for the Latin learner and it's not a beginner's guide for the Latin newbie - it's probably more of an enjoyable book for those who learned some Latin years ago and remember it with the fondness of time, having forgotten about the evils of learning endless lists of awkward words, as well as an amusing tour through history and other aspects by an excellent writer.

This book was previously published in the UK under the title 'Amo, Amas, Amat... And All That' and was one of the publishing success stories of 2006.

Originally published for Curled Up With A Good Book, www.curledup.com. � Helen Hancox 2007

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18 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Definitely British and definitely not scholarly, December 29, 2007

By	Bernard M. Patten "Book worm" (Seabrook, TX United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Ugh! No index. Ugh! Lots of errors: eg supine can end in u, disputandum is gerundive, some cases wrong, ad hominem in logic means more than he thinks it does, ad libidum might as "ad lib" mean "off the cuff" in comedy shows but in music and medicine it means freely, and of course Carpe diem does not exactly translate "Get a bloody move on." Was MI6 (military intelligence 6, the British CIA) really out to get Diana? And what pray tell has that to do with Latin? As for me, I like translations closer to the original Latin: So for me "mea maximal culpa" means through my most grevious fault and not "my fault in spades." Latin is stately. Let's keep it that way: Et nunc in perpetuum, Frater, Ave atque Vale for me sounds better as "And now, forever Brother, Hale and Farewell" and not Mount's cute "Hello and goodbye, brother, forever." My translation follows the original Latin order and gives the scene and statement dignity. After all, this is not a meeting at a night-club this is a funeral poem. Oh, well, who cares? My father said his generation would be the last to read Greek and my generation the last to read Latin. And matter of fact, if this book is an example, the future for Latin looks less than rosy, and of course it's wine-dark for Greek.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Discouraging
It is sad to say that some of the people that reviewed this book showed an ample amount of vindictive behaviour towards Harry Mount and his book. Read more

Published 9 months ago by R. Miller

3.0 out of 5 stars Fun, but still lacking
Although this little tome is fun to read and take a bit of the boredom out of learning the language, it is still just a primer, and is, at times, still boring. Read more

Published 18 months ago by Seronac Rich

5.0 out of 5 stars He overlooked my favorite, "Illegitimi non carborundum!" :-)

I have never studied Latin (other than memorizing a bunch as an altar boy back in the day) nor do I intend to, but after having read "Carpe Diem" I certainly understand a... Read more

Published 19 months ago by Merlin

2.0 out of 5 stars Deemed crappy
Back in the day, when I was a tender young sprout, I (an altar boy) had begun training to respond to the priest in Latin during Mass. Read more

Published 21 months ago by Jean E. Pouliot

4.0 out of 5 stars Carpe Diem - Carpe Liber
This is an excellent Latin primer - set forth in an engaging, yet competent fashion. I studied Latin in high school and reading the book brought back the language with a rush... Read more

Published 21 months ago by Robert A. Scala

3.0 out of 5 stars Very good ... if you're British
As an American, it was difficult for me to adjust to Mount's British tone, he being a young hipster in addition to one heck of a Latin student. Wow. Read more

Published 23 months ago by Joseph Gunter

4.0 out of 5 stars ...place is full of "wankers"
If you read some of the other reviews here you'll probably notice some of the people Mount mentions in his book. Read more

Published 23 months ago by Jonathon R. Howard

1.0 out of 5 stars interesting but.....
This was a very disappointing Latin book, as far as one would 'learn' any Latin. The history stories were interesting, but some of the flip commentary ...i.e. Read more

Published 23 months ago by J. Lyn Morris

4.0 out of 5 stars A Latin Primer
A strength of the presentation is that it will simplify the
complex nature of the Latin grammar and language construction. Read more

Published on November 18, 2007 by Joseph S. Maresca

› See all 12 customer reviews...

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