Back to Mr. St. John’s Latin class. Our first class. First time I ever heard Latin. Teacher asks us to write, anonymously, why we are taking Latin. There were quite a few future doctors in that class.
My question, and somehow I knew he knew it was mine – I want to know what it’s about. Yup, provoked a few giggles. Yup, wished I wasn’t there and thrilled no names were given out.
Saved by Mr. St. John. He was able to redefine my question into something less, dumb – innocent. Sure, Latin is an ancient language, the building block of English and so many languages, but what’s its history. What else was the class about? We weren’t there to just learn how to speak, read, and write it. How were we going to use it…find a use for it?
Language is alive. It changes. Old meanings fall away and new develop. There are reasons why this word and that are related, are opposite.
There is always more to anything if you are willing to ask the question. There are no dumb questions, except for the ones not asked.
I’m a firm believer that I can never be the only one thinking that question. I’m just _____ naïve? enough to ask it before I think too much on how I might sound by asking it.
Writers are somehow always asking – what if – what about – how – why – all those beautiful question words.
The best part is we get to redefine them and their answers. Give a roomful of writers the same tense of verb, same noun, same everything and you will get a roomful of different stories. Maybe one will be about when Latin was the only language known.
All I know is that I’m glad I asked that question as the answer excited me more about why I took Latin in the first place.