The Latin Verse
There is an old saying that, "You can always tell a Harvard Man (now Grad)....but you can't tell 'em very much." In keeping with that tradition, the main Harvard fight song, Ten Thousand Men of Harvard features a first verse in Latin. The verse is intended as an extended Latin pun and makes little sense when translated:
Illigitimum non Carborundum, Domine Salvum Fac,
Illigitimum non Carborundum, Domine Salvum Fac.
Gaudeamus Igitur,
Veritas, non Sequitur,
Illigitimum non Carborundum, Ipso Facto
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Famous quotes containing the words latin and/or verse:
“To write or even speak English is not a science but an art. There are no reliable words.... Whoever writes English is involved in a struggle that never lets up even for a sentence. He is struggling against vagueness, against obscurity, against the lure of the decorative adjective, against the encroachment of Latin and Greek, and, above all, against the worn-out phrases and dead metaphors with which the language is cluttered up.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“My verse has brought me no roubles to spare:
no craftsmen have made mahogany chairs for my house.”
—Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893–1930)