The word companion comes from a couple of Latin words, cum (with) + panis (bread). In other words, a companion is a person you have bread with. For that, I took Latin in high school. When Mom told me I’d be taking Latin, she said it was to help me with English. “You mean, the language I’ve been speaking for 14 years?” I asked. She didn’t think that was funny. I had wanted to take French. Recently I learned that taking both Latin and French together helped with both languages. Wish I had known that sooner.
My constant companion, and usually the only person I have bread (and everything else) with, is Mary. Mary’s a good companion, and she thinks I am, too. Which is a good thing, because we spend a lot of time together.
Di over at pensivity101 (hi, Di!) provided today’s prompt in Linda Hill’s Just Jot It January. Now here’s George Reeves for Kellogg’s Sugar Frosted Flakes.
It’s funny, that connection to bread. Kevin loves bread, but I can’t eat gluten. 🙂
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But you can still be companions, right?
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I had never really thought of where that word came from so I appreciate your post. All the romantic languages derive from Latin, so it would have helped your French, Italian and Spanish. Ahhhh! Thankfully French class was open for me and I didn’t get pushed into the dreaded Latin class 😳
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The study said that not only will Latin help with French, French will help with Latin. Maybe the same is true of Spanish and Italian.
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Those three languages derive from Latin. Lots of similarity in verbs and nouns, so if you know French you can pick up Spanish fairly quickly and vice versa 🙂
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Bread is important here. We don’t always get to share it (except with the dog). I grew up loving Frosted Flakes.
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Sharing with the dog is very important. Mimi waits patiently knowing if she doesn’t make a big deal of begging she get the last bite of bread.
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MiMi is the queen. She knows that.
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Back in my Frosted Flakes days, Tony the Tiger was always the spokesman. I didn’t remember the kangaroo, do you?
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Nope. Only Tony.
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I only did Latin for a year at school and remember none of it so thanks for the information. We like sharing bread together in our house too.
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It comes in handy sometimes, but rarely.
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Friends and food is always a good thing. It gives you something to do if you don’t want to answer the question.
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Quite true….
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LOL tried to take a French class in grammar school but the teacher said I couldn’t even say my own name right so she dropped me. That’s pretty sad. Glad that you found someone wonderful to share you bread with. Who gets the end piece?
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Sounds like a nun. I get the end piece; Mary just throws them away.
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Latin is one thing I’ve never attempted. People say it’s incredibly useful but I dunno, seems like a tough language to tackle.
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Axtually, it isn’t that difficult. Learning the declensions (different cases of nouns) and conjugations (the verbs) is about the hardest thing, but once you have that down, it’s pretty simple. My stepfather taught Latin whikle he was a priest and used to help his son with his homework, and always used to say “where’s the verb?” because that gave you a clue who the subject and object was.
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I took 6 weeks of Spanish, German and French. Studied French from grade 7-Bachelor’s in English. I never took Latin, but by course of literature, I learned a lot of Latin.
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That’s why my mother said it was so important. I think in my case she was telline me “I had to suffer four years of it, so do you.”
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UH HUH. Parenthood is a sick cult like that.
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How did I miss this! Glad you always recap the week. Yay for constant companions. Cheers to you and Mary!!
My only experience with Latin was high Mass which by the time I came along was only the noon Mass on special Sundays if memory serves.
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I think we had two High Masses on Sunday, at 11 and 12:15, then they cut it back to just the 12:15. That was the Mass we usually went to, because my folks couldn’t get out of bed any earlier. That was back in the days of the strict “fasting before Communion” rules (no food for three hours, no liquid other than water for an hour), and my brother Jim just about went into shock one morning waiting to go to Mass so he could have breakfast. Mom got up and made him eat. On the other hand, it does explain why the 6 AM Mass was so well-attended…
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I remember the fasting but only an hour before. Not too bad. My parents were early birds. We usually went to the 8 am.
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For my first several years of school, they told us to come to the 9 AM Mass and sit with our classmates. I always felt badly because I always went with my folks. Someone (new principal, I think) realized that was the way it should be, the kids going with their parents, so that settled that. They were like that at first: you had to bow or curtsy (depending on your gender) to the nuns and priests, we were required to use cartridge pens instead of ballpoints, etc.
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I did both. We had Friday morning Masses. All eight grades x 2 classes per grade. Filled the church more than some Sundays. By high school, the school Mass was monthly and not necessarily on a Friday.
Then we’d attend with mom and dad every Sunday and every holy day of obligation. It was a big deal later on when we’d go to Saturday 5 pm services and it counted for Sunday.
Oh and the first time I wore pants to church instead of a dress I felt I needed to go to confession.
Times sure have changed.
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