Fishing Lines

The motto of the Flyfishers' Club (London) swam into view in today's Halifax Chronicle-Herald: Piscator non solum piscatur. Loosely translated in the newspaper: Fishing isn't just about fishing. More literally translated: A fisherman does not only fish. Most assuredly fishing is all about spending time in nature; I almost wrote "real world," a retronym made possible by the arrival of virtual reality or the cyberworld that takes us in daily. Nature in all its magnificence and beauty is a wonderful place to visit, whether one is casting flies in a stream, brook, or river, or sitting on a bank or a boat with a line in the water.

The Latin motto plays on two words, piscator and piscatur. As often one letter makes the difference; the noun piscator is a person who fishes. The verb piscatur is a form of the deponent verb piscor, piscari, piscatus sum I fish, to fish, I fished.  Blogwriters have a Latin motto, nulla dies sine linea (no day without a line), but perhaps those who fish feel the same way. It's harder to drop a line in winter or wild weather, but reading about fishing gives fishers other lines to haul in. Here in Nova Scotia the haddock is in short supply, but tomorrow the smoked salmon will appear as a Christmas starter. Vivant piscatores (Long live fishermen)!

Eyes to See

Virtual reality (VR) is a trend going into 2015, at least according to an article in the Halifax Chronicle Herald (12/23/2014). Facebook spent two billion dollars to acquire Oculus VR, and Sony is working on a VR headset with the name Project Morpheus. I find VR boring, but I have not attempted any experience with a headset or game that puts me in full VR. I find reality beautiful and awesome, infinitely varied and overwhelming. Oculus VR is a fantastic name, as the Latin oculus, oculi m. means "eye." Brilliant, to name a VR product for the organ that enables one to see. Project Morpheus is another compelling name for a VR project, as Morpheus is the Latin name for the god of dreams. The Greek root of his name is morphe, which means "form, shape." The god of dreams brings many shapes and forms to our minds as we sleep. Is VR a kind of dreaming while awake? If so, Sony has chosen an excellent name for its VR product.

I also came across another Project Morpheus launched (literally) by NASA. I do not see a link between this spacecraft and the god of dreams, but the logo looks like a vertical take-off craft, and humans have long dreamed of landing on other planets; perhaps Project Morpheus brings us closer to fulfilling this dream.

Mighty Winds

The internet is amazing. Friends forward articles, and I am always delighted to mine classical gold from them. An article about an enormous tuba, a musical instrument in the brass/winds category, featured a musician with the same last name as mine, no relation. This musician co-founded a wind quartet that he named Boreas Quartet, a lovely allusion to the Greek name for the north wind. I'm not sure the dictionary.com slideshow will come through, but as I checked out the etymology of Boreas, the slideshow with some fantastic words about wind magically appeared on the page. Breeze through the nine English words of the slideshow, and if you are eager for more, try researching the other Greek/Roman winds: Boreas/Aquilo (N), Notus/Auster (S), Eurus/Vulturnus (E), Zephyrus/Favonius (W), and Lips/Africus (SW). Other English words from Boreas include boreal (pertaining to the north), and a Latin phrase we may have mentioned before Aurora borealis, the northern Dawn, known better in English as the northern lights, a beautiful celestial phenomenon in the northern hemisphere.

Truth Bureau

Okay, it is not the truth bureau, but the company whose logo I noticed at the bottom of a link sent to me is named Bureau Veritas. The company is located in France, where a bureau is a desk or a department. Veritas is the Latin word for truth; its full dictionary entry is veritas, veritatis f. truth. As far as I can tell, Bureau Veritas is a company that likes to find out and verify the truthfulness of other companies and products. The company won an award for a promotional video that explains their mission. Can you tell what the logo represents? Here's the answer from the website: The original insignia of 1829 was designed by Achille Deveria and engraved by Jacques-Jean Barre. It represented the female figure of Truth emerging naked from a well. The founders explained their reasoning in a letter that was distributed with each Register. Their aim was clearly stated: “to seek the truth and tell it without fear or favor." Isn't it also wonderful that the designer of the insignia has a classical name? Achilles, son of Zeus and the sea-nymph Thetis, was the greatest Greek warrior.

He Gets Around

When my husband stopped the car in the parking lot of Mahone Marine in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia recently, I stayed in the car and looked around. Parked next to our car was a small motorcycle, and I was amused to note that it was a Kawasaki Vulcan model. Vulcan was the Roman god of blacksmiths, the handyman, the craftsman of deities, known to the Greeks as Hephaestus or Hephaistos. I remembered also that a few days earlier, as I waited for my husband outside the Lunenburg Hardware store, I saw another incarnation of Vulcan in the form of a plastic lawn spreader.

And why not? Both the motorcycle and the fertilizer spreader are creations of mechanical inspiration. I'm sure the god would be delighted to see that his name lives on.

Making Progress

On the front of a cute convertible, a Pontiac G6, parked in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia this Sunday forenoon, I saw a colorful license plate and bent closer to see the details. How nice that it was from the island of St. Maarten, probably a souvenir, with a coat of arms featuring a Latin motto on the ribbon: Semper Pro Grediens. In Latin prose the word would be progrediens meaning "going forth," so the whole motto reads "Always going forward," a great motto for a car license plate. From the Latin verb progredior, progredi, progressus sum, we derive the English words progress, both noun and verb (change the accented syllable), progression, and progressive. I did not have a camera with me, but here is a similar image of the license plate.

In God He Trusts

I've been watching Mystery on PBS television, season two of Endeavour, the series featuring young Constable Endeavour Morse, before he became Inspector Morse. The crimes are horrific, but I heard in a recent episode Morse's family motto in Latin: Deo non armis fido, In God not in arms I trust/have faith. As Morse thinks through clues and discovers the perpetrators of crimes, I am heartened that somewhere in this fictional character's family, someone believed in God.

Titanic Winter Storms 2013-2014

Over the winter I heard fleeting references to winter storm names, but only now, with one more storm heading this way a week into spring, did I check out the naming of winter storms. How great that a Latin class in Montana helped make the list of twenty-six names, one for each letter of the alphabet!