The dissenting two members have reportedly not spoken to anyone since the vote
WINDSOR The Eton College Debating Society voted overwhelmingly this week that the school’s centuries-old motto has been mistranslated in assemblies, prize-givings, and at least one plaque for as long as anyone currently enrolled can remember, following what members are calling “the single most consequential division bell of the term.”
How The Debate Actually Started
The motion began, as these things apparently do, with a Fourth Former who’d been assigned the motto for a Latin prose exercise and returned three days later with what he described as “deeply troubling news” for the entire institution.
The Case For The Motion
Proponents argued, at considerable and occasionally tearful length, that generations of boys had been misled by a translation apparently adopted sometime in the nineteenth century by a headmaster more concerned with how it looked engraved in stone than with strict grammatical accuracy.
The Case Against, Delivered By Exactly Two Boys
The two dissenting members maintained that the traditional translation, while admittedly loose, had “served the school perfectly well for hundreds of years” and that changing it now would mean reprinting an alarming number of ties, plaques, and at least one stained-glass window.
The Headmaster’s Response
Contacted for comment, the Headmaster’s office issued a statement noting the school “remains extremely proud of its motto, in whichever of its several possible translations pupils currently prefer this term.”
What Actually Happens Now
Nothing, according to society officers, who confirmed the vote carries no binding authority over the stonework, the ties, or indeed the window, but does now appear, in minuted form, in the society’s official record for future generations to argue about. Further school satire coverage continues at bohiney.com.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com