Amo, Amas, Amat...and All That: How to Become a Latin Lover

by Harry Mount

Those endless afternoons where you struggled to remember the third person singular present indicative of volo (vult) may be a long time ago. But, if you have the vaguest memory of the ablative absolute, the locative and the gerund, you mastery of Latin will spring back to life with Amo, amas, amat...and all that. In his trip through the world's most influential language, Harry Mount uncorks its magic, drawing on Latin lovers from Kingsley Amis to John Cleese, from Evelyn Waugh to Donna Tart. Read this book and you will know Latin. Know Latin and - mirabile dictu - you will know Wilfred Owen's misery, Catullus's aching heart and the comedy of a thousand bachelor schoolmasters.

Genres: Nonfiction, Language, Reference, Linguistics, Education, History, Humor

269 pages, Hardcover

First published January 2, 2006

Reviews

[Trevor · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very cute book. I was mostly interested to see just how similar Latin is to Italian – to be honest, and this is from someone with very limited Italian, it does not seem that they are as similar as I had thought. Latin seems much harder.

I didn’t bother trying to learn the conjugations and declensions – hardly seemed worth the effort if I wasn’t going to actually learn the language. I think this book was, in many ways, an attempt to bring English Public School Old Boys back into the fold with some romantic memories of their Latin classes and some of the standard jokes I assume are said in these classes. The rest of the book is more a vade mecum (from the Latin for ‘come with me’ – an essential little book one always has to hand) – this contains interesting little facts and figures about Rome and Roman Architecture and Numerals as well as about Latin. I particularly liked the alphabetical list at the end with some essential and more common Latin phrases.

I always enjoy listening to someone who is clearly passionate about their subject. I also like anyone who quotes freely Kingsley Amis’s The King's English A Guide to Modern Usage. I read this a couple of years ago and even wrote a review, but now that I’ve checked I don’t seem to have properly finished the damn thing. There was a lovely bit in Amis that is quoted here where he divides the world into two types of language manglers – Berks and Wankers. A Berk is an amiable character who mangles language by bringing everything down to the lowest common denominator (did you know that Berk is rhyming slang – what rhymes with Berkshire hunt? –I did mention lowest common denominator, didn’t I?) A Wanker is someone that not only knows the difference between ham and prosciutto, but will, if there are more than one type of prosciutto available, not talk of prosciuttos, but prosciutti. The Berk v Wanker classification system is very handy and so it is nice to see someone breathing new life back into it.

What can I say? This book was light, amusing and quite fun. Anyone who quotes the whole scene from Life of Brian where Cleese gives Chapman a Latin grammar lesson http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIAdHE... can’t be all bad – anyone who then points out an error in John Cleese’s lesson really is certain to make me smile.

[Garth · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Harry Mount went to Oxford to study Classics in the late 1980s, he had learned Latin for eight years and Greek for seven, probably on a timetable which allowed him a decent number of periods per subject per week. Since Latin had already been in steep decline since 1960 – when Oxbridge abandoned its entry requirement of Latin or Greek at GCE – Mount was fortunate to get the education he did. The situation in state schools at that time was deteriorating even faster, as a result of Kenneth Baker's wretchedly overcrowded national curriculum, which refused to allow the study of Latin or Greek to fulfil the curriculum language requirements.
But, then, Mount was at Westminster. He chooses to look back on those years and his time at prep school through prose-tinted spectacles, conjuring up images of tweedy, pipe-smoking, bachelor Latin teachers getting misty-eyed about Catullus when not fantasising about the little boys in front of them, and to lament their passing. This is all of a piece with the book's somewhat passé public-school tone – dividing English-language pedants into Kingsley Amis's 'Berks' and 'Wankers', and so on – mitigated only by Mount's enthusiasm for the subject.
Mount's book could make useful reading for someone who knows Latin quite well and wants an instant, light-hearted revision of its main features. But it is unusable either as a reference book, since it has no list of contents or index, or as a teaching text, because there is nothing to teach from.
The book as literature is very amusing and the "correction" of Monty Python's "Life of Brian" Latin graffito scene absolutely hilarious.

[Cassandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

A bit of a snob, unnecessary comments. Talks about Princess Diana a weird amount.

[Chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

Mostly inoffensive, except for the offensive parts... and then I got to the final chapter, entitled 'Dumbing up, or death to the Cambridge Latin Course.'

WHAT.

The author of this insignificant, error-ridden little book, this flocculus, thinks he can cast aspersions at the CAMBRIDGE LATIN COURSE? There are words in Catullus for people like that.


More significantly, it pretends to be an introduction to Latin, but the grammatical explanations (and the instructions to consult Kennedy) would be useless to anyone who didn't already know the language. I can only conclude that its true purpose is to allow people like Harry Mount to read it and stroke their own egos. One star for you, sir.

[amelieeedl · Rating 1 out of 5]

tried this to enthuse myself about spending all summer doing latin. did not work - the author came off as a massive snob and literally slagged off the exact degree i did in the conclusion. caah was the best degree sorry you hate that kids from state school can go and study something interesting and cool at the same institution you and your posh mates went to xxxx

[Margaret · Rating 1 out of 5]

An odd mixture of great wodges of 'serious' Latin - lists of vocabulary or tables of declensions - alongside gossipy little examples of modern celebrity culture rendered in Latin & intended to illustrate some point or other. He includes lots of nasty little digs against people - particularly Paul Gasgoigne & Sarah Ferguson - much in the way that people used to gawp & laugh at "circus freaks". Harry Mount clearly thinks he's a great wag but he comes across as a complete dick.
My copy is marked as "humour" [very loosely in my view] but filed in the bookshop alongside serious text books and Mount seems to think he has crafted a serious Latin text. I have a Latin 'O'-level - grade A no less - and of course that's a long, long time ago but as I did the Mickey Mouse version (Cambridge Schools Latin Project) which included absolutely no grammar & I was not paying much attention - because a) he annoyed me & b) I was on the bus a lot - I know no more Latin now than I did before I started. It's absolutely useless if you actually wanted to learn Latin unless, like him, you are a former prep / private school pupil who has years of Latin study behind you that you simply wish to dredge up from the depths of your memory.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm one of those weird folks who actually thinks it would be kind of groovy to learn Latin. However, I'm in my 40s so the brain is not as pliable regarding language acquisition. For those who studied Latin in school it will provide a great way to brush up. For folks like me, who are new to Latin it will provide a simple framework for understanding the grammatical structure. It doesn't mean you won't have to put time in to really make it your own but it's presented in a non-threatening style with little challenges long the way. It's also peppered with tidbits on history, culture, style, architecture, and amusing anecdotes from the author's days as a student to break up the monotony of declension tables and the like.

It's an amusing primer and though it won't give you great depth it's a fun and useful tool.

[Colin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliantly funny intro/refresher to the art of Latin grammar. By the end I had a nostalgic glow and a slight feeling of inferiority at only having done three years of it at school in the eighties.
The end is an impassioned defence of classics in education. It's not exactly in keeping with the modern trend towards chasing easy, employer-friendly qualifications and it's all the more stirring for being doomed to failure. I'm not sure I agree though. The British are hopeless at learning other languages, and if you're going to learn one, learn a living one. That way you get all the benefits of access to another culture's literature, with the added bonus that you'll be able to talk to the waiter on your next holiday beyond the usual "Duas cervejas por favor"

[Kavi Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Looking back, I now feel the romance that pulses through the thin, dry veins of these devoted classics masters. It is a romance forged from this strange combination- of rigid rules of language coming up against the passionate, orgiastic, murderous history and literature of Italy when Italy was as romantic as it is now, but also happened to rule the world.”

To love a dead language is to feel a loss heavy on the soul. This book, while leaving some to be desired, stirs the heart with the passion of a school teacher begging someone to wipe the dust from their eyes and see the past with a new lens.

[Immy · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 🌟 Somewhat interesting, I feel I got some understanding about the structure + cases of Latin, enjoyed the bits of vocabulary and etymology, but overall a bit too pop-linguistics trying to be funny for me.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

A gift from high school friend and fellow Latin student, Barbara James Repetti - What fun - made me remember how much fun it was to take Latin classes (three years in high school, three years in college, one year in grad school). Maybe I can find a "senior" Latin class and work on my skills.

[Deirdre Lohrmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neat little pocket guide to Roman culture and the Latin language

[Stephanie Robertson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not for anyone who is not very interested in Latin already. I loved it. Latin crash course with humor!

[Jessie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can’t count the number of times I laughed out loud while reading this. Mount is an approachable, hilarious, enthusiastic, and never stuffy teacher, who will enchant beginner and seasoned Latinists alike. His memorable examples supply amusing mnemonics and easy-to-read grammatical explanations, while simultaneously dipping the reader into the fascinating world of Latin culture. Whether you read it for a laugh, a taste-tester of the language, or to improve your grip on Latin grammar, ‘Amo, Amas, Amat...’ will take you on a charming, funny romp that will no doubt be received summa cum laude. De gestibus...

[G. Lawrence · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting subject with some good writing, although it appears to think the novice can become expert with remarkable speed, and some of its examples of sentences could really do with thinking about again. Is "Paul Gascoigne beat his wife Sheryl" really an appropriate subject to use to learn verbs in Latin? There are other odd ones in the book, which also made me cringe.

[^ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading quickly through I thought what great fun this book is. The author genuinely succeeds in being highly amusing without grating, because he comes across as having such a great love of Latin himself.

Now I need to re-read the book, and absorb his clearly set out learning points!

[Jon · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you can tolerate the whiplash effect of his jumping between cutesy anti-intellectualism and deep-seeded snobbery, and the slightly whining tone of someone lamenting a lack of popularity in his chosen nerdy focus, then this is probably a good first book on Latin in terms of laying out the basics.

[Margaret]

Meh. Dull.

[Michael Tarpinian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mildly I the resting, but it is clear I will never learn Latin. But I learned a lot about columns—DICC.

[Kelsey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Wasn't really a fan, some parts of the book were offensive to me and in regards to improving my Latin I didn't find it super helpful.

[Budge Burgess · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very English book - it begins with the tatoos on a celebrated English football player which turned my stomach immediately (convertit ventrem meum protinus) and doubtless the stomachs of many other Scots. I used the Internet to translate my comment - 'convertit' means 'translated'. Keep that in mind.
Mount then goes on to explain that Latin has "no practical use" - its appeal lies in its snob value, it marked out the student as coming from a superior class, undoubtedly educated in one of England's public schools. Now, I will admit to a loathing for the English public school system and the people it produces, but Mount makes a typical English mistake of assuming that the whole of the UK follows England's model.
In fact, if you go to the Celtic countries to which England still clings as echoes of its Empire, Catholic schools in Ireland and Scotland taught Latin to the working classes, both to those who aspired to become priests (or even nuns) and to those who would remain devoutly lay. It remained a subject with no practical use, but its appeal was not to snob value, it represented a practical career move for those trying to escape poverty ... and it had a role in the continued subjugation of another generation to the tyranny of religion and obeissance to the clergy.
I was taught Latin 60 years ago. I hated it. I was so bad at it I wasn't even allowed to sit my 'O' level. But Mount is correct - he argues that if you've been exposed to Latin teaching at some stage in your childhood, much of the learning will remain with you decades later. Decades later, I thought I might try Latin again - might even pursue the current version of an 'O' level (Latin being the only exam pass I never achieved). I never got round to it ... but I was amazed how much I'd remembered (the Marist Brothers who taught me clearly battered something into me).
Mount's father was an adviser to Thatcher (my profuse apologies for exposing you to that horror), he went to public school, then Oxford, he writes for Tory newspapers and magazines in England, he's related to Cameron, the pig-bothering prime minister, he’s not a man for whom I could find much affection.
The writing in ‘Amo, Amas …’ is pompous and affected. It’s the English upper classes talking down to us proles (as usual). Significantly, he concludes his book with an attack on the Cambridge Latin Course – it’s clearly too proletarian and accessible for the likes of Mount. I’ve found the Cambridge course very helpful and, if you want to learn Latin, I would seriously recommend it as a sound starting point.
Mount, however, recommends “Kennedy’s Latin Primer”. BH Kennedy published his ‘Elementary Latin Primer’ in 1843, a Public School Latin Primer in 1866, and Revised Latin Primer in 1888. It has continued to be revised and revised and revised ... must run to a hundred plus editions by now. Never fear, you can access in online in a range of its 20th century editions - might be worth searching and forming your own opinion. Kennedy's books are the stuff of public schools and clearly were not aimed at us peasants ... or, indeed, at the 21st century.
Mount’s book contains some interesting comments from place to place, and some annoying pomposity too. It’s schoolboy jolly japes … and, yes, if you read it you’ll probably glean some understanding of Latin.
If you are wanting to learn Latin purely because you're seeking to impress (or perhaps even con your way into) the English upper classes - well good luck to you, maybe you'll learn some useful pomposity from Mount as well as a glimmer of Latin.

[Elderberrywine · Rating 4 out of 5]

True confession: back in the dim dark days of my English classes, I do not remember ever running into verb conjugation. Tenses- past, present, and future - absolutely. And I could diagram a sentence a treat. But otherwise, you would just go with what sounded right (and it was helpful if you read a lot), but you mean there are rules? Pfft. This is English.

I first ran into verb conjugation when I took up Spanish. Spanish is such a reasonable language. No silent letters to speak of, and sure there are the occasional accents, but they only go in one direction (looking at you, French). A few irregular verbs, and there’s the formal/informal you, but you could always be formal to everyone, and now you only have four forms to remember! Go, Spanish!

So I was surprised at this little taste of Latin grammar. Oh my. So much more complex. This book was clearly written as a backup tutorial for British public schoolboys, and is basically a series of conjugation charts, which I merrily skipped over, and all sorts of odd tidbits, which were fun. A list of the important emperors of Rome? OK! A list of common Latin phrases and abbreviations and what they actually stand for, such as i.e., ibid, ad hoc, etc. ? Think I got about half of those right (would have been more if I had studied law).

And how did I know who its intended audience was? Towards the beginning, Mount quotes Kingsley Amis as dividing Latin users between Berks (confident Latin nerds) and Wankers (who just use Latin to sound important, even when it doesn’t really fit). Well, then. This was a bit of fun, but probably not too useful unless you are one of the aforementioned schoolboys.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was OK is an accurate assumption. For a beginner in Latin, the book does take a leisurely and anecdoatal tour through the language, culture and history of Rome and the teaching of Classics in the UK school system. Also, it doubles as a simple primer with succinct explanations of the key grammatical rules and language roots that any Latin student should know.

Unfortunately, it's usefulness is overshadowed by Harry Mount's awfulness. He is an Oxford Classicist born with a silver spoon in his mouth and demonstrates little, to zero knowledge of the relevence of Latin and Classics in the developing education systems of the UK.

He writes like a pretentious snob, demonstrates his limited exposure to the real world like a pretentious snob, and unleashes vile barrages of abuse and bullying (in the name of humour) on Princess Diana and her death, Paul Gasgoigne and his struggles with addiction, and the remaining bastion of modern Latin education accessible to all: The Cambridge Latin Course.

He essentially states that his problem with the CLC is that the children today aren't put through the abuse (and it was abuse) that teachers in the time of his study inflicted upon there students. He fails to recognise the evolution of education.

Finally, his attempt to explain the differences in appearance between Doric and Ionic columns resorted to descriptions of "pretty little girls", their curly hair and petit physiques.

Harry Mount attempted to introduce his reader to the "latin wanker" in a cautionary manner, but proved himself to be that, and something much more sinister.

[Toni · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is not good. It promises to provide a lighthearted introduction to Latin in your life. It seemed to deliver early on. Giving several examples of common use Latin and what it means, giving a helpful rundown of Roman gods and Roman architecture and their influence on modern life. That was nice. But then the majority of the book is boring autobiographical accounts of the author's personal experiences with Latin education, history of Latin education etc. I don't care. Plus around the two hour mark the author hit 3 strikes for using Jesus's name as a curse word. Three strikes and you're out as far as I'm concerned.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book wasn't sure what it was: a casual history book, a Latin primer, or a 'how Latin is still part of modern life' book. By being all over the place it never did any of them well. That being said, it was a fun read. Parts of it reminded me of 1066 and All That: A Memorable History of England , which is a favorite of mine.

[Bethan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Simultaneously smug, derisory, and often outdated (passé celebrity, transphobic, and rape jokes?), who is this aimed at? You couldn’t learn Latin from this book as it simply lists verb charts with no exercises or context. Maybe you could revise some key ideas, but then if you were revising would you really need it spelling out that V = 5 etc? Mis-pitched; an occasional good anecdote, but overall self indulgent and, as largely neither reference nor humour, whilst claiming to be both, ultimately very unsatisfying. Saved from one star by the useful gloss of common Latin phrases at the end.

[Allie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've owned this book for years and decided to finally read it. It's been almost six years since I graduated in Classics, so I admit I needed a refresher to get my Latin going again! Sometimes the author's sense of humour was a bit ehhhh (including one gross instance of misgendering a trans woman on purpose) but I liked the approach in general. Maybe all the Loeb books sitting on my bookshelves can finally be put to use again!

[Michael Arnold · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very quick read, but it could be studied longer. It has some really nice explanations of the basics of Latin grammar, and at the very least it'll give you much more confidence in the stuff you already know. That is the best way to use this book (even if the explanation of the gerund doesn't make much sense in my head). I'll be keeping this book, it'll be very useful, but it'll not be my main go-to.

[Kelly Burns · Rating 3 out of 5]

I attended a grammar school in the 90s and spent year 9 doing the Cambridge Latin course. Despite this I know absolutely the best minimum. So I’m considering learning Latin again I picked up this book. I can now say, those intentions are gone. If you are going to learn this highly useful, but complex language, a teacher is the only way to go. The learning of declinations of nouns and subjugation of verbs, along with the 1,000 or so tenses cannot be done in a book of 200 words I’ve decided.

[Darren Sapp · Rating 4 out of 5]

This isn't designed as a first-semester Latin text but rather a fun, companion piece. I'd suggest reading this if you're interested in how much Latin influences culture and language or read between that first and second semester. The grammar teachings in this would require a lot of rote memorization to be effective, so I just ignored that. I took the book for what it is: a somewhat memoir-ish journey through Latin.