Latin tag

JCWisc at aol.com JCWisc at aol.com
Wed Dec 25 10:08:40 PST 2002


In a message dated 12/25/2002 12:22:12 AM Central Standard Time, mpollak at panix.com writes:


> "In every grammer school of the world *ad Graecas
> calendas* is translated: The American Dividends." Can anyone tell me what
> the latin tag is referring to?

Egad, dredging up the rusty Latin... The Roman calendar had three fixed points: the Kalends, the first of the month; the Nones, the 5th or 7th, depending on the month; and the Ides, the 13th or 15th, depending on the month. You reckoned days backward from one of these fixed points; thus, a given day might be "the third day before the Nones of March," and so on. The Greek calendar had no "Calends," so *ad Graecas calendas,* "at the Greek Calends," means "never." That presumably is when one could expect those damned thieving Yanks to pay their blasted dividends.

Jacob Conrad

P.S. I think it's more usually *ad calandas Graecas*



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list