Our Latin teacher was such a gift. Even though he was a luminary in the classics world, a retired professor of graduate school, fluent in seven languages, he was living in our remote valley and willing to teach us the rudiments of Latin. We jumped into Wheelock’s Latin and received more, so much more, than Latin. He knew the stories behind the sentences we were translating; he knew the nuances and idioms of Latin; he knew innumerable references in English literature to this Latin phrase. His memory was stunning – his ability to retrieve quotations, cite authors, remember character’s names was the stuff of legend. When he introduced the “ethical dative” he would tell us how Jane Austen used it!
Regularly he would address the younger students saying, “Kids, this is an important word for you to know” and go on to introduce a word I had never once heard or seen. In the arrogance of my ignorance I figured if I’d never run across it, these kids would never in a lifetime see it. A little rolling of the eyes leads to a little crow on the dinner plate. Inevitably, in-e-vi-ta-bly, I would come across that word within a week, and stumble over it several times within a month’s time.
One of those words was concatenation. Chapter 2 of Wheelock’s had this sentence from Horace: Me saevis catenis onerat. He oppresses me with cruel chains. Beloved teacher sees catenis (chains) and introduces this very important word:
A series of links united; a series or order of things depending on each other, as if linked together; a chain, a succession.
Concatenation was the first of a series of obscure words that I learned from our beloved teacher and whenever I run across it now a special glow of remembrance, a delicious warmness works through me and I sigh a quite contented sigh. That word is now an old friend which I gladly welcome to my hearth.
This week I read The Catnappers by P.G. Wodehouse and came to these words:
“Sir?”
“You know what I mean. You talk of a something of circumstances which leads to something. Cats enter into it, if I’m not wrong.”
“Would concatenation be the word you are seeking?”
“That’s right. It was on the tip of my tongue. Do concatenations of circumstances arise?”
“Yes, sir.”
A Living Pencil 
Wonderful story!!
I have very fond memories of my Latin teachers…similar to what you described. Your fellow seems stupendous!! We insisted that our daughters take it in middle and high schools. So far, it has helped them satisfy the foreign language requirement for their BA’s.
And I just love it when one *sees or hears* a new word/thing….I will be expecting to run across this fine specimen in my reading soon 🙂
Here’s a link explaining *giclee* prints http://www.gicleeprint.net/abtGclee.shtm It’s some new technology which my artist-mother has taken advantage of….because it sure will be difficult to divide that crazy quilt six ways!! She had prints made. Who know who will get the original.
You had a beloved teacher who used Wheelock’s? What fun! Our children have been working their way through, thanks to tutors, and I can’t believe what laughter I hear during lessons. Who said Latin was a dead language?
(-: Diane
Great story! We’ve struggled through Latin for years. This year, I finally gave up and signed them up for classes through Scholars Online. Their teacher is wonderful and the laughter has already started! She’s been explaining the literary and cultural allusions that stumped me.I love words and I love Wodehouse! Our kids quote Bertie and Jeeves all the time.I’m struggling through Rolf – the language is making it a difficult read-aloud. We read Beowulf (the Heaney translation) out loud the summer before last and the kids loved it, especially when they found things in it that Tolkien had borrowed. My 4 olders will read it again this year for our study of Christendom.Lynne at the Sweetbriar Patch
That word is continually trying to flop out of my mouth! (but after all I am no more than a local yocal and so try not to dazzle them with my whatever it is that keeps those Latinate gems in my head…I just say ‘chain of events’ and remember that I *know* what concatination means)
Thank you for reminding me of his patience and vast knowledge! Could you pass on to them that Ken and Rachel welcomed Krisitan Peter on 9/13, another soon to be the second scholar at the Bomberger School for Latinist Yokels.
Thanks!
ARGH I had it right the first time…I didn’t think to look up to be sure…I just *knew* the ‘e’ couldn’t be right! concat*e*nation….. now have I left out a macron? probably two or three… No, no, no macron in English words!
Just this morning I ran across “concatenation” in my reading! I don’t know that I would have paid such close attention if it hadn’t been for remembering your post here. I know I must have run across the use of the word by Horace in Wheelock’s since I’ve been through all of Wheelock’s and some of Wheelock’s twice. But I didn’t remember it. I’m reading The Metaphysical Club by Louis Menand and read this:”Like Newtonian physics, Lockean philosophy is atomistic: it imagines everything as a concatenation of independent entities. In the Lockean theory of knowledge, mental contents are aggregations of discrete items of sense data linked by chains of association;…”Patti