What new word did you learn today?

[Homer Potvin]

You can still find Catholic masses in Latin in my neck of the woods, though I doubt the sermons are such.

 

[CatrionaGrace]

As a member of various chorales, I've probably sung more masses and requiems in Latin than most people ever hear. I'm not even Christian, let alone Catholic.

 

[Rath Darkblade]

As a member of various chorales, I've probably sung more masses and requiems in Latin than most people ever hear. I'm not even Christian, let alone Catholic.

Yes, and yes. I've had the same experience, and I'm not Christian either. (To be specific, the Mozart, Verdi, Dvořák, and Faure Requiems, as well as the Mozart Great Mass in C Minor, the Beethoven Mass in C Major and Missa Solemnis etc... and also Brahms's Die Deutsches Requiem, in German).

I simply enjoy the experience. And if it makes other people feel good too, why not?

 

[Louanne Learning]

transmogrify - to change or alter greatly and often with grotesque or humorous effect

 

[Heartlet Happer]

morlocks - imaginary beings originally from Wells' book Time Machine.

I knew the word from World of Warcraft, but did not remember the original introduction.

 

[JLT]

Our best beef gets exported. The best Aussie steaks I ever ate was overseas. Feels ironic, but I guess the money is in export over domestic sales.

I had a steak dinner in Sydney that was about the equal of the steak houses back in the US (which are now a vanishing species). The steak I had at the Outback Steakhouse here was, I felt, mediocre. (I remember a radio announcer on PBS thanking that company for being sponsors. He blew the endorsement, though, by calling it the Steakback Outhouse.)

Interesting. The scriptures in major religions (Q'ran, Bibles etc.) are so monolithic, that live literature is unable to use any part of it casually.

But people generally know the Bible in translation. Very few know Hebrew or Greek. And I'm told that the book of Matthew was first written in Aramaic and then translated into the Greek. But the King James Version of the Bible seems to be the default English translation.

You can still find Catholic masses in Latin in my neck of the woods, though I doubt the sermons are such.

When we were traveling in Europe, my mother would always catch a Sunday Mass at the local church. She found it comforting that the main parts were always in the Latin she was familiar with, regardless of the sermon.

 

[JLT]

As a member of various chorales, I've probably sung more masses and requiems in Latin than most people ever hear. I'm not even Christian, let alone Catholic.

The only song in Latin to crack the Top Twenty of British music was this a cappella version of "Gaudete" from Steeleye Span: