Dan Conway
magisterconway.bsky.social
Dan Conway
@magisterconway.bsky.social
Latin/French/IB/reluctant AP teacher. Sometimes tweets in Latin. Vergil fanboy. he/him
But seriously, for the three Latin verse prompts, if I wanted to do one and do it right, each would require extensive background reading (into Lucan, Napoleonic history, or pre-Socratic philosophy) in addition to research on the author himself and his context. That alone might take me 8 months
December 2, 2025 at 11:03 PM
I shouldn’t say that that galls me the most, actually, because of all the causes to give that money to, the promotion of philology is a pretty bizarre one. And the anonymous donor who’s totally not sketchy, trust them
December 2, 2025 at 9:14 PM
It’s this last part that galls me the most. Who has the time? If it weren’t run by Antig*ne, I might have considered giving it a try. But I have… a job and a family

How out of touch can you be if you think people will have free time for this? (This is Antig*ne we’re talking about, so… very)
December 2, 2025 at 9:12 PM
And then in Latin you have “ērūca,” which may be from “ēr” (hedgehog). One thing we all can agree on is that caterpillars are lil hairy guys
December 2, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Isn’t it true that Perseus 4.0 (the “gray rectangles” version that everyone knows) is currently impossible to edit in any way?
December 2, 2025 at 2:34 AM
"he recognizes his own, and happily leads them to the doorstep"

My students saw "laetus," but ignored the crucial "ad limina ducit"—we are fated to be led to the doorstep of school. But our superintendent "recognizes his own" by acknowledging their pleas.

Prediction for 12/2/25: 2-hour delay
December 1, 2025 at 4:36 PM
From one of his travel letters recounting his trip to Berlin, published in 1892

www.twainquotes.com/Travel1891/A...
Mark Twain - Chicago of Europe - German Chicago
www.twainquotes.com
December 1, 2025 at 2:25 AM
That rules out posts in all languages besides English, Mandarin, Hindi, and Spanish. Bad luck for that poster, who followed up on that post with an insult in French, a language with only 312 million speakers
November 26, 2025 at 10:01 PM
I had to go back on the old site to find this
November 25, 2025 at 2:24 AM
I took a peek at the book, it doesn’t cover anything before Cicero.
November 24, 2025 at 4:47 PM
Also, I’m interested to know the answer because I’ve been working on a Latin novella that takes place in this era where a letter is key to the plot. It even has Cornelia as a side character (along with a teenage Tiberius and a 10-year-old Gaius!)
November 22, 2025 at 2:29 AM
This is a good question. There might be an answer in this anthology of Roman letters, which has a very detailed introduction. I have a copy in my classroom, so if you don’t get an answer by Monday, remind me

www.wiley.com/en-us/Roman+...
Roman Letters: An Anthology
<p><i>Roman Letters</i> offers a rich selection of original translations of ancient Roman letters spanning from the 1st century BCE to the 2nd century CE. Chronologically arranged and grouped accordin...
www.wiley.com
November 22, 2025 at 2:26 AM
In fairness, it's things like the tenses of the subjunctive, and the CED does mention tense and subjunctive verbs. But separately, not together—why does it say, "There are six tenses of verbs in the indicative mood: present, imperfect...", but no such language for the subjunctive?
November 17, 2025 at 3:14 PM