Sodomy non sapiens

[andrewducker]

A friend of mine has a daughter at school and is wondering whether they should take Latin - whether they would find it actually useful later on for other subjects.  They think that it would be useful for science, and also for wanting to be a doctor or a vet.

Anyone got any opinions on this?

Comments

[lebeautemps.livejournal.com]

I did Latin and my daughter does it now. I would say that it teaches the discipline of learning the mechanics of language, so helps with other languages, however obliquely. I'm not sure whether latin is relevant any longer for Sciences or even Law - things have labels that must be learned if necessary but that goes for latin and non latin people. My pal did a Vet degree recently and latin was not an issue.
I enjoyed it because it opened up that extra dimension to Roman history which I loved as a kid.

[0olong.livejournal.com]

When I was studying Law A Level (13 years ago now) our teachers said that Latin phrases were generally being phased out fairly successfully, and we shouldn't worry about them too much - though I suppose for Law, you will need to be able to read old cases and legislation, somewhere down the line.

[lebeautemps.livejournal.com]

Yes, true, the phrases are being phased out. From experience, I haven't come accross any cases or legislation in Latin that I've needed to read. And tbh, a GCSE in Latin would be inadequate for that anyway.

The old cases can be bad enough in English :)