Resumo um artigo do sítio da BBC para falar de lemas de escolas e de clubes de futebol em Latim. O facto de Gordon Brown ter recordado o lema latino da sua escola secundária levou a que o jornalista Finlo Rohrer escrevesse sobre a importância desses lemas. Umas vezes eles são seguidos à risca, outras ficam ligeiramente esquecidos:
Assim, temos alguns exemplos de lemas em escolas:
Usque conabor
Floreat etona
Floreat Domus Chathamensis
Veras hinc ducere voces
Non sibi sed omnibus
lumen accipe et imperti
vir sapit qui pauca loquitur
potius sero quam numquam
O artigo continua, referindo-se aos clubes de futebol:
Beckham latinista
There are a select group of institutions — including schools and football clubs — where a Latin motto is almost a sine qua non. Go on the web and you can even find Latin consultants for businesses wanting a heavyweight motto.
The idea is simple, a bit of Latin spells a dose of gravitas, and a hefty slice of tradition and history.
Mottos for schools tend to be laden with concepts like effort, honesty, humility, teamwork — in short all the attributes the teachers wished the pupils really possessed.
(...) Rarely used but worth considering for schools struggling with discipline (...).
Assim, temos alguns exemplos de lemas em escolas:
Usque conabor
Floreat etona
Floreat Domus Chathamensis
Veras hinc ducere voces
Non sibi sed omnibus
lumen accipe et imperti
vir sapit qui pauca loquitur
potius sero quam numquam
O artigo continua, referindo-se aos clubes de futebol:
In football, the benchmarks are nil satis nisi optimum (…) for Everton (...) and Blackburn Rovers’ arte et labore (…).
Tottenham Hotspur got an earful from Latin lovers at the beginning of 2006 when they announced a plan to drop the motto audere est facere (…) from the badge on their strips.
Beckham latinista
David Beckham is a Latinist, reportedly having ut amem et foveam (…) and perfectio in spiritu (…) as tattoos.
But the best sporting slogan is that of football club Queen’s Park with ludere causa ludendi (…).
Oliver Taplin, a classics professor at Oxford University, says Latin mottos hark back to a time when Latin was Europe’s lingua franca.
“It is interesting that school mottos are still mostly in Latin. They come from a tradition when if you were going to be a participant in European culture, you needed to know Latin. But I've also seen mottos in French and Greek.
“Latin is so associated with the history of education. Grammar schools were started so people could learn Latin grammar.”
Mr Taplin says he has been called on to conjure up Latin mottos, including on one occasion an obscene one for a retiring air force officer.
