I'm no fan of Latin but in any language this pronoun fiddling is ridiculous
Did I mention I wasn't too keen on Latin? I'm still battling to come up for air after the pile-on you beasts gave me recently when I cried hurrah at the news that the Labour government had cut the £4 million Latin Excellence Programme in state schools.
Well, now one of our most prestigious educational establishments has issued an edict that positively defaces the very columns of that ancient patois. Each year, since its founding some nine centuries ago, Oxford University has conferred its degrees upon graduating students in Latin. But now it has been deemed wrong that the wording used in this ceremony is not inclusive. Specifically, it is not gender neutral, and therefore does not cater to those who identify as 'non-binary'.
And so changes are afoot. Indeed, using correct and ancient procedures, a gazette has been issued to alert faculties that a gender-neutral degree ceremony is necessary. Dons will soon vote to change the Latin ceremonial text, unchanged since about the time King John affixed his seal to the Magna Carta.
Unchanged for some 800 years until it was decreed in 2025 that a message of congratulations grammatically gendered masculine or feminine might offend people who very possibly couldn't understand the words anyway. These graduates having likely completed a degree in the forward-thinking subfields of LGBTQ+ histories and gender as a plural category of historical analysis at the university's Centre for Women's, Gender and Queer Histories, for which the study of Latin may have been deemed non-essential.
Consider the low blow of being conferred a degree with the Latin word of 'magistri' (for masters) or the word 'doctores' (doctors), both of which are uniformly, violently, masculine.
One would have to rush to one's gender-neutral toilet to sob gently, before repairing to a café to be consoled by family and friends over sips of, doubtless, alcohol-free, fermented botanicals and resuscitating bites of vegan jackfruit wraps.
All of which must leave the Oxford classicists in a state of desperate flummox. For is not Latin so gloriously dead? Is it not as fixed in history as William's defeat of Harold in 1066, as Queen Victoria's ascent to the throne in 1837? Latin may be tiresome and painful, or, if you're deluded, intellectually dreamy and the base of English, redolent of the beauty of Catholic compositions of Adoro te devote or Ave verum corpus. What it is not is fluid, it cannot evolve. Its sublime perfection lies in its death. If it were a parrot, it would be most definitely deceased.
Yet now, as black holes bend light so Latin must be warped to adhere to the vain manifestations of some of our nation's brightest snowflakes. To whom I'd suggest, you grab your wretched degree, then pile into the boozer for a proper drink and get yourself ready for the real world.
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