All roads lead there. Some roads lead from there.

Last week, I advised removing Latin abbreviations from your writing. I said that in the business world you need to express yourself in English.

This week, I’m encouraging use of Latin in your writing. Why? Because English is a wonderfully absorbent language. For centuries we’ve built up an immense vocabulary of words, phrases, prefixes and suffixes by borrowing from other languages.  That’s why, in English, we can communicate with great precision and shades of meaning.

Some words and phrases are so common in English we tend to forget they are Latin. Let’s look here at just a few in common usage:

• A.D. (anno domini) - literally Year of the Lord, used to designate years in the Gregorian calendar
• Agenda - things to be done
• A.M. and P.M. - ante meridiem and post meridiem, meaning before midday and after midday.
• Alma mater - nurturing mother, one’s college or university
  
• Alter ego - second self, such as Superman is to Clark Kent.
• Ante bellum - before the war (When discussing American history, this means the period just prior to the Civil War)
• Homo sapiens - Human beings, literally man with sense.
• Nova Scotia - The Canadian province has a Latin name. It means New Scotland.
• Per diem - literally each day, but in business it means “The amount of money for expenses each day.”
• Post mortem - literally after death, used to mean an examination of the body after death.
• Vice versa - the reverse

There are much, much longer lists of Latin words and phrases used more exclusively by the legal professions, medical professions, in music, and of course Church Latin. But you can see that we use Latin daily in ordinary conversation and writing.

These words are definitely Latin and they definitely communicate, so they should be part of the English speaker’s vocabulary.