Staff and boys ordered to communicate exclusively in Latin, chaos ensues by lunch
An Ambitious Pedagogical Experiment
The Classics Department at Eton has launched what it is calling Immersion Fortnight, a two-week initiative under which all staff and boys enrolled in Latin are required to communicate exclusively in the language during lessons, meals, and, controversially, games. Head of Classics Dr. Aloysius Bramwell-Croft said the scheme was designed to demonstrate that Latin remains “a living, breathing tool of communication,” rather than, as he put it, “a dusty thing boys endure between rugby and prep.”
Day One Goes Reasonably Well
The first morning proceeded smoothly enough, with boys managing basic greetings and a handful of classroom instructions. By lunchtime, however, difficulties emerged. Several boys were unable to request specific items from the dining hall, resulting in what staff are calling “the Great Sausage Misunderstanding,” in which an entire table ended up with extra custard and no sausages, having apparently ordered dessert twice through a grammatical error nobody has yet been able to fully explain.
“It’s humbling,” said one Fourth Former, attempting to describe his afternoon rugby match in Latin and instead producing what his teammates believe translated roughly to “the ball has become extremely angry with me.” His housemaster called the exchange “not technically correct, but impressively committed.”
Other boys have fared worse. A pair of roommates attempting to negotiate who would use the shared desk lamp reportedly abandoned the exercise entirely after five minutes of failed conjugation, resorting instead to rock, paper, scissors, which Dr. Bramwell-Croft has grudgingly permitted as “a reasonable fallback, provided the terms are announced in Latin first.”
Staff Struggle Too
It is not only the boys finding the fortnight taxing. One junior master, asked to explain a change to the prep schedule, reportedly spent four minutes attempting to construct the correct subjunctive before simply writing the change on the board instead. Dr. Bramwell-Croft has acknowledged “a rocky opening,” but insists the difficulties are themselves educational. The London Prat has been granted rare access to the department’s daily briefings, describing the atmosphere as “part classroom, part hostage negotiation, conducted entirely in the ablative.”
Why Latin Persists in British Schools
The continued teaching of Latin at schools like Eton has been the subject of periodic coverage, including pieces from the BBC on the subject’s enduring, if shrinking, place in British education, while general background on the school’s academic structure is available at the Eton College Wikipedia entry for readers wondering whether any of this is, strictly speaking, necessary.
The Fortnight Presses On
Despite the Sausage Misunderstanding, the department says it intends to see the fortnight through to its conclusion, with a closing ceremony planned in which boys will be asked to deliver a short speech entirely in Latin summarising what they have learned. Early drafts submitted for review reportedly include several sentences that Dr. Bramwell-Croft has described only as “grammatically ambitious” and, in one case, “possibly cursing the sausage directly.”
Games Masters Request an Exemption
The scheme has run into particular difficulty on the games field, prompting the department to circulate an emergency vocabulary sheet covering common rugby terms, which several boys admit they now know better than their actual French vocabulary, where the Director of Rugby formally requested an exemption after a match nearly descended into confusion when a Latin-only tactical instruction was misheard as an entirely different, considerably ruder set of words. Dr. Bramwell-Croft has so far declined the request, arguing that “the ancients managed to conduct entire military campaigns in Latin, and I fail to see why a Wednesday afternoon fixture against Harrow should prove more demanding,” a comparison the Director of Rugby has called “not remotely helpful” and “frankly a bit much.”
Boys on the pitch have improvised their own solutions, developing a rough system of hand signals to supplement whatever Latin they can muster in the heat of a match. One winger described the resulting communication style as “somewhere between rugby and interpretive dance,” adding that his team had, against expectations, actually improved during the fortnight, “possibly because nobody can understand the other side’s calls either.”
An Unexpected Silver Lining
Not all the news has been bad. Several boys report that the immersion, chaotic as it has been, has genuinely improved their grasp of basic vocabulary, if only because getting food at meals now depends on it. One boy, previously indifferent to the subject, said he had never learned so many words for “bread” so quickly in his life, out of what he described as “pure, motivated self-interest.” Dr. Bramwell-Croft has seized on these anecdotes as vindication, telling colleagues that “necessity, as ever, remains the finest teacher this department has ever employed.”
Parents Weigh In
A handful of parents have written in asking whether the fortnight might be extended to include correspondence home, a suggestion the department is reportedly considering “with interest, and no small amount of mischief.” One father, a former pupil himself, said he rather hoped it would happen, if only to see whether his son’s Latin had improved enough to explain, convincingly, why his last two letters home had asked for money.
Readers who enjoy watching venerable institutions cheerfully inconvenience themselves in the name of tradition can find more at Private Eye and The Onion.
SOURCE: https://prat.uk