Good, Better, Best

My students are usually amused when I recite the following rhyme about a positive-comparative-superlative adjective in English:

Good, better, best

Never let it rest

'Til the good is better

And the better best.

My Latin 2 class is memorizing tonight five irregularly compared adjectives, and I think English derivatives are most helpful in learning the Latin words. But I also like mottoes that contain the irregular forms. The motto of Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut is Monitī meliora sequāmur, a quotation from Book 3 of Vergil's Aeneid, rendered by me literally as having been warned/advised, let us follow better things. You may already know that meliora is the Latin word meaning better things, because we've mentioned the English word ameliorate, to improve, make better, elsewhere. But did you know that meliorate, meliorable, meliorative, and meliorism are also English words? Meliorism, according to my dictionary, is the belief that the world naturally tends to get better--what a happy thought!

BETTER LIVING THROUGH LATIN

In looking at the link in yesterday's post, I noticed MORE and different Latin words in the colorful seal of Canada (around the outside), so this morning I had to look them up, and lo, ANOTHER great motto, DESIDERANTES MELIOREM PATRIAM, this time from the Order of Canada, with more information here. This new motto is useful for reminding students that a first declension noun (patria, -ae f. homeland, fatherland) can be modified by a third-declension adjective (melior, melius, gen. melioris, better), but the endings must agree (case, number, gender), not rhyme. This motto also reminds students that melior is the irregular comparative form of bonus, a, um good, and gives everyone a chance to learn or review the English derivative ameliorate, to make better.

The present participle, desiderantes, is also of interest to teachers of a certain age who remember listening to a top-40 hit by Les Crane called Desiderata when they were in junior high school. The verb desidero (1) I desire, long for is the source for both verb forms; to revisit that history click here.