Common Latin phrases in English
Dozens of languages trace their roots to Latin. English is not one of them. Still, a lot of English words are based on Latin or French. And some expressions come straight from Latin. So in this episode, we’ll talk about eight words or expressions in English that come directly from Latin—they’re not adaptations, they’re not words with roots in Latin. They are Latin words that are also, now, English words and expressions. I have eight of them, plus a handful of abbreviations, too.
Alma mater
Let’s start with the A’s. Alma mater. Alma mater in Latin means “nourishing mother.” That’s not what it means in English. In English, your alma mater is the school—usually the university—you attended. Alma mater has been used to refer to universities for a long time—back in the Middle Ages, universities were seen as places that nurtured the minds and spirits of their students. The term has been used in English since the 1600s. It refers to a person’s former school, college, or university.
Here’s how you use it. Michael Jordan was a famous basketball player. His alma mater is the University of North Carolina. Elon Musk is in the news a lot. He attended the University of Pennsylvania, so we say his alma mater is the University of Pennsylvania.
Circa
Next up, “circa.” Circa means, “approximately.” And in English, we use the word “circa” primarily with dates. So if we want to say something happened, or something was created, or someone was born, approximately at a point in history, we use “circa.”
For example, you might read about a painting. And if the exact year is unknown, you might read this: “Completed circa 1850.” That means, it was completed sometime around 1850. An old photograph might be dated circa 1945, if you don’t know the exact year but you think it’s close to 1945. This is sometimes abbreviated with “c” plus a period on the placards in the museum. “c. 1850” means “circa 1850” or “approximately 1850.”
You can use this with old buildings, too. You might say a castle was constructed circa 1500, or that ancient ruins were part of a city established circa 2000 B.C.
Et cetera
“Et cetera.” It’s common to say “et cetera” in English, but not in formal or official settings. Et cetera means, “and other things like it.” You can put this at the end of a list. If you’re doing some spring cleaning, you might need to buy all purpose cleaner, rags, trash bags, et cetera. That means, “other things like it.” In this case, other cleaning supplies.
It’s common to say this out loud—et cetera—and you can abbreviate it in writing as “etc” plus a period. But in more formal or official settings, “et cetera” is considered lazy, so try not to use it in those types of situations.
Per capita
The next one I want to talk about is “per capita,” but I should probably explain that “per” is a common word, too. “Per” means, “for each one.” So you might say, “Girl Scout cookies cost $6 per box” that means, they cost $6 for each one box.
“Capita” in Latin is the plural of “head.” In English, “per capita” means, “for every person.” This is usually used in demographic or economic statistics. How much income do people make in the United States, on average? Massachusetts has the highest per-capita income of any state, at around $83,000. The U.S. overall, however, enjoys a per-capita income of about $69,000 per year. That means, $69,000 for every person for every year.
The important thing about “per capita” is that it’s “per person,” so it includes people who don’t work or don’t make income—like kids.
Pro bono
If you’re a lawyer, you might accept a case pro bono. That means you don’t accept payment for it. Any time a professional does something and does not charge for it, you can say that person is doing it pro bono. It’s most associated with lawyers. Sometimes people need legal services and they can’t pay for it. Lawyers sometimes give back by giving their legal expertise, by taking a case without getting paid. When they do that, they take a case pro bono.
Doctors can do this too. Doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals might do some pro bono work. That means they use their expertise to volunteer their services. Notice, “pro bono” is used when professionals donate their professional skills for free. If a lawyer volunteers to clean up a park, that’s not pro bono. But if the lawyer represents an environmental group in court, that is pro bono.
Quid pro quo
Next up: “quid pro quo.” This means one thing is given explicitly for another thing. This is frequently used in cases of bribery or public corruption. Let’s say I’m really good friends with the mayor of my city and I want to give the mayor a present, say, a new car. That’s very generous of me! Let’s also say I’m the president of a company that builds roads. And the mayor, soon after receiving the car, chooses my construction firm to build a new highway.
Coincidence? Or was it a quid pro quo? The mayor might say, no way! It’s not a quid pro quo. The gift and the contract are two separate things. One has nothing to do with the other. But other people might be skeptical. They might think it was a quid pro quo. They might think I gave the car because I expected to get the contract.
Status quo
Here’s another one with the word “quo”: “Status quo.” The status quo is the situation the way it is right now. You hear this a lot in business. “We’re challenging the status quo,” someone might say. That means, we want to challenge the situation the way it is right now. But a lot of people don’t like change. They might be comfortable with the status quo; that means, they might be comfortable with the way things are right now.
Vice versa
Last one: vice versa. Vice versa means, “the other way around.” Here’s how we use vice versa. We usually make a statement about actions or feelings moving in one direction, and we say, “and vice versa” if we want to say they move in the other direction, too.
JR is the producer of Plain English and he and I work on these lessons together. I help him with his part, and vice versa. That means, I help him with his part, and he helps me with my part.
Abbreviations
Let’s close with abbreviations. AM and PM come from the Latin; they don’t stand for anything in English. If you close a letter or email and add something beneath your signature, you might write “PS.” That’s a Latin abbreviation.
And if you stroll through a cemetery, you might see the abbreviation “RIP” on the tombstones. You might think “RIP” stands for “rest in peace,” and it can. But “RIP” comes from a Latin phrase meaning the same thing. And people used “RIP” in English long before they started saying “rest in peace.”
Jeff’s take
Here are some others, in no particular order. Ad hoc, per se, de facto, alter ego, lingua franca, subpoena, caveat, versus, cum laude, and the abbreviations e.g., i.e., and AD.
There’s a lot of Latin, too, in legal and medical vocabulary. A priori, de jure, habeus corpus, post mortem.
A few fun facts about Latin. Latin was never the most-spoken language in the world. It was the lingua franca of the Roman Empire. As the Roman Empire declined, local dialects became Romance languages like Italian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Romanian. Latin faded from everyday use around the year 900 AD, but remained common in religious and scholarly settings for centuries.
Nobody speaks Latin as a native language today. People study it when they study history, classics, medicine, law, and religion. Latin remains the official language of the Roman Catholic Church.
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