‘No Latin lovers’

LONDON - Britain’s Greek and Latin aficionados are outraged at a decision by some local authorities to veto the use of some Latin words and phrases - including bona fide, ad lib, et cetera and eg. - in official documents.

The councils say Latin is no longer widely understood. But classicists say axing Latin phrases is an attack on the foundations of English.

“Think of the number of words from Latin that are now part of the English language: alias, alibi, exit, terminus,” said Peter Jones, an academic and founder of the charity Friends of Classics. “Are they going to cut out those words?

“The English language is a hybrid animal that has adopted any number of words and phrases from other languages which have become a part of English,” he added Monday. “To deny the hybrid nature of the English language is almost like ethnic cleansing of English.”

The council in Bournemouth, a town of 170,000 on England’s south coast, has a “plain language” policy.

Tuesday, AP