Carpe Diem and all that

Years ago I came across a lady who finished all her emails with 'Dominus tecum' before signing off.  No doubt she still does it and I always thought it was a very cool thing to do but I never had the foggiest idea what it meant until just now when I finally looked it up.  Turns out it means 'May the Lord be with you'.  Now I admit I'm not a religious person by any stretch but what a nice thing to say!  Sounds really caring, don't you think? Much better than 'cheers' or the dreaded 'laterz' my children favour.  It makes you sound really intelligent too I reckon.  I mean, I've never even met the 'Dominus tecum' lady but nonetheless I've always pictured her as someone super smart and assertive.  This is a lady who knows her stuff; someone not to be messed with.  It would be brilliant for writing letters of complaint too!  It doesn't even matter if like me, the recipient has absolutely no idea what it means, it just gives your correspondence that added edge.  Don't argue with me buster, I know Latin!

I decided I should take a leaf out of her book and from now on sign off with a suitably intelligent sounding phrase.  It didn't take me long to find one; it's been my favourite for years, ever since I watched Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society.  Wow, guess I've been a Latin buff all along, who knew?

This picture is in a frame to the left of me as I type.  For anyone who isn't familiar with it, 'Carpe Diem' means 'Seize the Day' - in other words, life is short so make the most of it and grab whatever it has to throw at you.  Very apt at the moment I feel!  Mind you, upon doing a little extra research as to its origin I also uncovered this wee gem "Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero pulsanda tellus" ("Now is the time to drink, now the time to dance footloose upon the earth").  Yep, I could live with that!  It's not really short and snappy enough for signing off your emails with though, is it?

Each to their own though I suppose.  For a more modern, distinctly un-Latin twist I rather like 'When the world slips you a Jeffrey, stroke the furry wall' as famously quoted by Russell Brand in 'Get Him to the Greek'.  OK it sounds weird but basically it's saying when the world gets you down, find peace in the things around you.  Strange but true!  Not sure I'd hang that one on my wall but other favourites I have next to my desk are 'If you're going through hell, keep going' by Winston Churchill and I love this one my family gave me - 'To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world'. Aw shucks :)

In case you're wondering where I got the above picture from, it came from a brilliant website called 'Feed Your Soul' - it's so cool!  I know absolutely nothing about art but I know what I like and here you can find a huge bunch of talented artists who are all nice enough to share their works of art online and allow you, me and everyone else to browse to our heart's content and download and print whatever we like for free.  You can choose as many as you like, all it will cost you is the ink and the paper!  Well worth a look and art lover or not, I guarantee you'll find something there that will make your day that little bit brighter.

Carpe Diem!

Jackie:-)

TODAY I LEARNED: That you can talk about getting completely legless and still sound cool and intelligent!  As long as you do it in Latin...