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Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes, that nice couple we met in Portugal

It depresses me that the plural of forum is now accepted as "forums" instead of "fora". Even spell check highlights the second, not the first.

I think one of the problems is that you see the word written down somewhere - often in the media - and if it's not a word used very often, you just assume it's correct. Inheritees isn't a "derivative" of a word I'd frequently use, and it sounds looks plausible enough. Whereas if someone writes, for example, "could of" instead of "could have", that immediately hits you in the eye as obviously incorrect grammar. Yet many do.

I have finally given up on collecting and have sent my collection to auction at DNW for the next sale. There are some decent examples of most silver denominations, but generally the Victorian crowns and sixpences are amongst the better items, including some sixpences that are ex Alfred Bole. For the variety hunters, there will be some of interest, such as: 1887 double florin with die pairing 1+B 1887 halfcrown with unrecorded reverse design 1887 florins 1+A and 2+A 1888 florins 2+A (1887 obverse) and 3+A 1889 florins 3+B and 3+C 1890 florins 3+C and 3+D 1914 florins 2+C, 2+D and 2+E 1923 florin 2+E (mule) 1839 shilling proof is rarer en-medaille variety 1858 shilling 4+A NGC MS63 1880 shilling 7+C and 7+D 1884 shilling 7+D and 7+F 1888 shilling (not 8 over 7) 1889 shilling 2+C (never seen another) 1895 and 1896 shillings small rose 1921 shilling 3+D 1837 sixpence B over R in BRITANNIAR 1867 sixpences 2+A and 3+A 1879 sixpence DN 9 1880 sixpences 5+D and 6+D 1898 sixpence 2+B small date 1911 sixpences 1+A (March sale) and 2+A (April sale)

https://www.numismaticnews.net/world-coins/fluorescent-light-coin-examinations

MDCCCLX Denarius Libertus XIV LCW(V) Sub Pede?????

The best one of these cod-Latin things I know about is a graffito (oh, God, not another thread about singulars and plurals!) scratched into a park bench in Oxford : Ore stabit fortis arare placet ore stat which actually is sort of genuine translatable Latin, though it means nonsense, but the clue is it's on a park bench!

My grandfather, who was otherwise very straight laced, sold me a long tale about a piece of pottery found in a dig inscribed "Itis apis pota bigone". Took me a while to spot the joke!

Fantastic price wish that coin was mine , its been missing from my farthing collection for years Would grade it as Good fine and worth every penny of £100 You are very lucky to have it

Ceasar adsum iam forte, "passus sum", sed Antone... "Post toti emul esto", as my father used to say, before I realised that if you moved the spaces, it's 'Post to tie mules to'....:)

The one I recall is "Caesar adsum iam forte, Pompeii aderat".

Say what?

Sorry, I think a Cambridge Classics degree and 29 years teaching Latin trumps whoever wrote "daily edge.ie" !!😝😝😝

For anyone who wants a bit more Latin, we could add some third declension neuters. So, OPUS as in magnum (2nd dec.) opus (3rd dec.) - or Baldrick's famously lovely "magnificent octopus", and very infrequently seen in the singular of course has the ultra common plural OPERA. Means "deeds, actions, works" etc. But then we've got the pluralising a plural issue again. Puccini wrote several operas ! So, by common usage I guess we have to accept both operas and agendas. DRAMA on the other hand is another Greek neuter plural, singular DRAMON, but of course we don't use that, and accept dramas as a plural. Isn't language great fun?! 😜

I beg to differ on Referendum, which is a gerund, not a noun. It means "asking" and has no plural in latin. Snap - Blakeyboy beat me by seconds! PS: full discussion: https://www.dailyedge.ie/lets-figure-this-out-whats-the-real-plural-of-referendum-261522-Oct2013/

Actually quite nice , many Isle of man coins look like they were made in a hurry with little thought put into them but that's really nice , obverse engraveing of elizabeth and crown very nice 1981 was a year that they must have produced about twenty different crowns , better produce four good designs than twenty poor ones

Whilst we are in pedant mode, another one that gets me is "The amount of people...". Amount is used for things you measure by weight or volume, so unless we are taking a leaf out of the Nazi's book, we should say "The number of people...".

The only "coloured" coin I do like is the 1990 Isle of Man penny black crown. It won three awards at the time:

Since the start of Covid, 'data' has been referred to as a plural, strangely, after decades of everyone getting it wrong... 'Referenda' seems to have vanished now, thank heaven, replaced by 'referendums', but remember that we are often not the arbiters of good usage: in US supermarkets one till/checkout is labelled '15 items or fewer', quite correctly, instead of using 'less', and it can easily be argued that 'math' is the correct abbreviation of 'mathematics', and not 'maths'.....

Looks kosher, and I doubt you'd see those contact marks on a wrong'un.

When the pubs do eventually reopen, my drinking mate Paul won't be there to enjoy it. Oh, it's not Covid, he just had an accident. Got his finger caught in a wedding ring.

ah- yes- but 'Referendum' isn't second declension....it's a gerund- "The asking of the people", and, by definition, is singular, so 'referenda' never existed, and is used by people who want you to think they know Latin when they don't.... All that glisters.....:-)