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.