From dixonm@pobox.com Thu Mar 20 08:46:32 2003 Received: from mxu3.u.washington.edu (mxu3.u.washington.edu [140.142.32.133]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW03.03/8.12.1+UW03.02) with ESMTP id h2KGkVCK024918 for ; Thu, 20 Mar 2003 08:46:31 -0800 Received: from labyrinth.net (mail.labyrinth.net [63.66.160.19]) by mxu3.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW03.03/8.12.1+UW03.02) with ESMTP id h2KGkRg8007786 for ; Thu, 20 Mar 2003 08:46:27 -0800 Received: from mouse [63.66.163.19] by labyrinth.net with ESMTP (SMTPD32-6.06) id A05DD7C60122; Thu, 20 Mar 2003 11:46:21 -0500 From: "Meredith Dixon" To: latinstudy@vlists.net Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 11:47:10 -0500 Subject: Conversational Latin Reply-to: dixonm@pobox.com CC: latinteach@vlists.net, latin@vlists.net, classics@u.washington.edu, terentius_us@yahoo.com Message-ID: <3E79AA3E.4261.4ABDDB3@localhost> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v4.02) X-Uwash-Spam: Gauge=XXIIII, Probability=24%, Report="SMTPD_IN_RCVD, SPAM_PHRASE_00_01, __HAS_X_MAILER" Several weeks ago, I read a news story about the website Meetup, a non-profit site which is trying to arrange regular face-to-face meetings of people with common interests in cities and regions around the world. They had several foreign-language groups, but Latin wasn't among them. I thought that was a shame, and suggested that they add conversational Latin to their listings. They've now done so. I hasten to add that I didn't write the blurb they're using. In fact, the blurb annoys me -- there's no reason for the scare quotes around "speak". Evidently they didn't believe me when I told them that there were people who could speak Latin, and they're playing it safe in case the whole thing is a joke. Maybe if enough people sign up (and complain about it) they'll remove the scare quotes. Ironically, since they also didn't follow my suggestion about when to have the monthly meetings (all Meetup monthly meetings are held at the same local time worldwide), I may not be able to come to the ones in my region. But at least the option is out there for others. To sign up with Meetup and vote on where meetings should be held in your area, go to http://latin.meetup.com/ I don't know much about the people running the site, but I signed up two weeks ago and I haven't noticed any increase in spam. .