Tom Friedman starts his NYT column today with this: "The American public has been treated to such a festival of mea, wea and hea culpas on Iraq lately it could be forgiven for feeling utterly lost."
In these latter days, that's about as good as we're going to get. For a glimpse of Dog-Latin as it once was, see Stevens' definition of a kitchen, from the entry for Dog-Latin in E. Cobham Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable:
As the law classically expresses it, a kitchen is "camera necessaria pro usus cookare; cum saucepannis, stewpannis, scullero, dressero, coalholo, stovis, smoak-jacko; pro roastandum, boilandum, fryandum, et plum-pudding-mixandum ..." A Law Report (Daniel v. Dishclout).
[Update: John Kozak emails:
The UK satirical magazine "Private Eye" has a running Dog Latin feature called "That Honorary Degree Citation In Full". Not online, sadly (as far as I know), but here's the current issue's offering:
SALUTAMUS BEII GEII TRES FRATRI CANTORES IN VOCE FALSETTO NOMINE BARRIUS, ROBINUSQUE ET MAURICIUS EHEU NUNC MORTUUS (QUONDAM UXOR 'LULU', DIVA CELEBRATISSIMA GLASWEGIENSIS CUM CARMINE POPULARE 'CLAMATE!') TRANSFORMAVERUNT MUNDUM MUSICAE DISOTECHNIS CUM JOHANNES TRAVOLTUS HOMO IN TUNICO BLANCO IN ARTEFACTO CINEMATICO 'FEBRUM NOCTIS SATURNALIS'.
John adds that
Now I come to think of it, more contemporary Dog Latin can be found in the spells in the Harry Potter books, of course (the Latin translation of HP&TPS leaves the spells "untranslated": they should be in mangled Greek, it seems to me).
]
Posted by Mark Liberman at May 30, 2004 04:18 PM