I would tell my philosophy class, "give me ten words in English and I will give you the Latin roots for hopefully 7 out of 10 words." I had pretty good success. They would then remark, "Why was Latin not offered at my school?" I had to inform them that there were no Latin teachers, and, for the most part, Latin is universally ignored in all the academic institutions.
In Louisville, the largest city in Kentucky, two public high schools offer Latin (and this might no longer be the case). None of the male, Novus Ordo, high schools offer Latin. And I seriously doubt that the female high schools offer Latin either.
When I left the SSPX seminary, I finished up undergrad work at U of L. The head of the English department - a hippie who walked around in a Led Zepplin tee shirt - told me that English 101 would be good for my morale, a real "learning experience." I had already submitted to him a philosophy paper I had written on Sartre, the French existentialist, from my seminary days. Fr. Fullerton had given me an 'A' on the paper. I told the hippie professor, "Doctor, I know about perfect passive participles, and you are going to have me waste my time in English 101? Is this a joke?" Oh well, it was fun, nonetheless. I wrote one paper for an English class, and it was titled, "The h0Ɩ0h0αx Industry." Oh, those were fun times!
Topic: Average person's vocabulary in the toilet these days (Read 291 times)