Canis Latinicus

Kevin: A lot of multi-syllabic non-words in this story.
Mike: Yeah, see, they simply took Latin and then... ruined it.

— Rifftrax of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Tropus descriptus qui.

In a show rife with magic users or scientific terminology (or magical users of scientific terminology), Latin is the gear of choice. It's exotic-sounding, it has a word for almost everything, it contributed a good portion of the English vocabulary,^note Indirectly anyway, via Norman French and it's fairly well-known. With Latin by your side, you can spout off any string of awesomeness you want, and easily throw in a few less-than-Latin bits.

But what happens when you run out of Latin? Or if your spell or radioactive Phlebotinum has some attribute that you don't know how to name? Well, just make up some new Latin! It's easy: take an English word — any will do — drop any vowels from the end, and add -us, -icus, or -ium. If you're naming a town, use the extension -opolis (although the extension is actually Greek, not Latin, as real Latin would have you using the extension -ium or -ia). Ta-daa! Instant Latin!

This corruption of Latin, as the trope name should indicate, is called "dog Latin." (Incidentally, the trope title is in fact real Latin...for "Latin-like dog." No, it doesn't make much sense, unless we take it as some sort of metonym, but that's rather the point. Plus, it sounds less like a porn actress than (Lingua) Latina Canina, which is how "Dog Latin" would sound in real Latin). Possibly the most well-known dog Latin phrase is "hocus pocus", a condensation of hoc est corpus meum ("this is my body"), which to common churchgoers receiving Mass would signify something mysterious and incomprehensible.^note Maybe. This explanation dates to around the same time as the word first appears in print, but is speculative.

Greek is often used interchangeably with Latin for such purposes (as in the -opolis example above); few writers bother to make a distinction.

May be used in comedic versions of the Pretentious Latin Motto. Also comes in handy for Ominous Latin Chanting or a Parody Magic Spell.

Sometimes a result of As Long as It Sounds Foreign. A subtrope of Gratuitous Foreign Language, and super-trope of Binomium ridiculus. Compare withe Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe. On'tday onfusecay ithway Igpay Atinlay. See also El Spanish "-o". When a show does this to a character's name, it's Dr. Genericius. Fictional illness names and prehistoric animals will often have names like this. Binomium ridiculus is a subtrope of this.

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Examplæ

Animicus et Mangus

• Many of the episode titles in Negima! Magister Negi Magi are in Latin-ish. However, the original manga takes care to get all of its Latin, ancient Greek, and other languages correct, and has translations and commentary in the English-language Del Rey and Kodansha USA releases.
• When she was composing a few of the songs for ARIA, singer/actress Eri Kawai said in an interview that she wrote some of the lyrics using Italian/Latin-sounding gibberish. In particular, "Barcarolle" and "Coccoro". ^note The song "Lumis Eterne", however, is for its first half in (correct) Esperanto. This includes the title, which means "shined eternally". It's often incorrectly romanized as "Loomis Etlune".
• Played for Laughs in Hetalia: Axis Powers, when England uses this trope, a red pentagram painted on the floor of his basement, candles and black robes to cast a spell.
• The Hellsing OVAs give us "Gradus Vita". Try to find a translation of it. Step Life
• Many of the songs composed by Yuki Kajiura use the Conlang "Kajiuran" which is reminiscent of an odd blend of Japanese and Latin (used primarily when lyrical meaning is less relevant than the melodies and emotions that certain word sounds can express).
  • For example, she wrote many songs for Puella Magi Madoka Magica. While their titles are in (actual) Latin, the songs 'Sis Puella Magica' and Credens Justitiam sound Latin, but it is Kajiuran.
• In From the New World Saki and Shun work out that that the Monster Rats are in fact the altered descendants of those without telekinetic powers from the proposed scientific name. Except her reasoning is undermined by confusing the Greek root 'homo' meaning same with the Latin root 'homo' meaning man/human
• In Kaze to Ki no Uta, the text in Latin in chapter 3 is badly mangled, including nonexistent words and dialogue that has nothing to do with what the characters are allegedly saying. In the OVA, it sounds more like actual Latin, but the accent they characters speak with is very, very thick and almost impenetrable.
• In Sword Art Online, as pointed out here

Audius Playus

• In The Firesign Theatre's comedy album, I Think We're All Bozos on This Bus, when Sir Sidney Fudd is describing the accident that lead to his "particularly momentous discovery", he says, "but then, quid malborg in plano, consternation turned to lucidation." This is basically pure gibberish.

Comicus Boocus

• Played both ways in the Asterix series, where Roman names are mostly in fake Latin, but the Latin phrases are legitimate, even though a phrase like "cena canis" (dog's dinner) may be identified as "dog Latin" for the sake of the pun.
• Disney Ducks Comic Universe
  • The classic "The Golden Helmet" introduces Mr. Sharkey, an alleged lawyer who supports all his claims with Latin-sounding phrases. For instance, when challenged to prove that his client is who he says he is, he replies nonchalantly, "Flikkus flakkus fumlidium," which he claims to mean "Can you prove he isn't?" And it's catching: later in the story one of Donald's nephews asks the others if they've had enough of this Dog Latin nonsense, to which his brother replies, "Yeppus yappus yubettus."
  • In Don Rosa's sequel "The Lost Charts of Columbus", it's Donald who gets the last word (in Dog Latin) when he advises the defeated villains to "aqua concus dipporum" which he translates as "go soak your head."
• In the X-Men books, the precognitive mutant Destiny wrote down several volumes of prophecy given the title Libris Veritatus, probably an attempted back-formation from the word "exlibris" (ex libris = "from the books") combined with the misspelled genitive veritatis ("of truth"). In proper Latin, it would be libri veritatis.

• Le College Invisible has album titles like Lostum and spells like "Youtubem", which allow you to see events happening elsewhere.
• Mortadelo y Filemón: Whenever Latin is needed, it is granted to be totally - and comically - faux Latin.
  • In "El Antídoto" ("The Antidote"), the Super has his head turned into a pig's head because of one of Bacterio's inventions, and the pair is sent to search for a medicinal herb to cure him (the titular antidote). Its botanical name is Hierbajus Apestosus Repelentus ("Stinkus Disgustingus Weedus").
  • In "Contrabando" ("Smuggling"), Mortadelo disguises as a fly, and an entomologist captures him and tries to pin him on a board, classifying him as a Moscardus Cabezonus ("Botflyus Bigheadus").
  • In "El 35 aniversario" ("35th. anniversary"), Mortadelo, disguised as a priest, mockingly baptises a bill he doesn't intend to pay as Incobrata Fallídez et Archivata ("Unpaid, failed and filed").
• Wonder Woman: Etta Candy's Beta Lambda sorority rarely goes by anything other than the Holliday Girls, but on occasion, their banners can be seen reading "Beeta Lamda".

Comicus Stripium

• In the MAD parody of Mark Trail, Mark Trade is assigned to hunt down a "Canis Bernardus Saintus." Looking it up, he finds that it means a St. Bernard dog, and can't believe he'd be asked to kill his Canine Companion Sandy, who is one. He has Sandy stuffed anyway since there's a $5000 reward.
• Once in Doonesbury, while Duke was ruling Al-Amok, he let it go to his head and demanded that Honey speak to him "in Latinum!" To which she replied, "Yessius, sirrus!"
• A recurring gag in Retail is the 'Field Guide To Customers' series, in which varying types of annoying customers are described. Each one is accompanied by a fake scientific name for the customer.
  The Complainer (Quibblus Annoyus)

Fanbus Worcium

• All Because of Uncle Gary: The incantation for the Satanic ritual is a mix of pseudo-Latin fragments and names that aren't even in dog Latin.
  Santo rita mita meada ringo jonah tito marlon jack la toya janet micheal dumbledora the explora...
• Potter Puppet Pals featured both Ronnicus explodicus and Pantiloonius poopicus. Also Pituitarius shrinkidinkius. And the words "lorem ipsum" appear in the Elder Swear.
• Intentionally done in Thousand Shinji. When Shinji wanted to send a "Get out" message to SEELE, he mixed two Latin random words that looked right. Lorenz pointed out that those words were nonsense but its meaning clear.
  “Discedo solus, what in God’s name is that supposed to mean?” One of the shadowy members of the SEELE council asks.
  “Nothing. It's Latin, but it's nonsense,” Lorenz replies flippantly. “Whoever did this probably just looked up a couple of words that looked right and mixed them together without thought for grammar. The message is clear though.”
• In the Discworld fic The Price of Flight, the Ankh-Morpork City Air Watch are awarded arm-of-service distinctions by Vetinari, in keeping with his understanding that an Air Force should be a distinct Arm of Service, on a par with the Army and the Navy. They receive a distinct uniform, a Standard, and a motto - Per Ardua ad Arduam, or Through Adversity To Even More Adversity.

Filmicus — Animatea

• The mission scene in Beavis and Butt-Head Do America has background music whose text, the score's composer admits in a DVD feature (and demonstrates in the manuscript score), runs: "Scrotum agitato, Ignoramus, Genitilis longuis, Hemorrhidus burnum all day long."
• In The Little Mermaid (1989), the second line of Ursula's spell to transform Ariel into a human and take her voice is a melange of gratuitous Greek, Latin, and Italian:
  Larynxes, glossitis, et max laryngitis, la voce to me!
• In My Little Pony: The Movie (2017), Capper warns his fellow Klugetown residents that the Mane Six are infected with the in-universe fictional disease "pastellis coloritis", taking advantage of the ponies' natural vivid colors.
• Zootopia has the flowers Stu uses as a natural pesticide on his farm are from a fictional crocus varietal with the scientific name of Midnicampum holicithias. Only the first word is even an attempt at Latin, and translates very loosely as "between the fields". The second word is vaguely Greek, in which it translates just as roughly as "all shepherd". This is somewhat appropriate despite the linguistics since Stu plants them between his fields to keep the bugs off ("shepherding" the crops). Their common name of "Night Howler" presumably derives from how they make animals act, just as one of the real plants called "loco weed", Oxytropis campestris, has a name which translates as "sharp keel of the field".

Filmicus — Livus Actionicus

• Monty Python's Life of Brian gives us another round of punny names, such as Biggus Dickus and his wife Incontinentia Buttocks. The trope as a whole, though, is parodied in the scene where a Roman centurion makes Brian painstakingly correct the grammar of his "Romans Go Home" graffiti. It is a perennial favorite among cool high-school Latin teachers (though he uses the term "locative" incorrectly).
  • "Motion towards" technically isn't Locative, but it is only used by a handful of words that can also use Locative, so they are always taught together in the same chapter of Latin textbooks. His Exact Words were that "This is Motion Towards isn't it, boy?...Except that domus takes the..?" "The Locative, sir!" The general point that "Domus takes the Locative and therefore also uses Motion Towards" is entirely accurate.
  • John Cleese himself taught Latin (albeit very briefly).
  • The film is actually playing with the whole idea at this point because the ROMANS think these names sound absurd...
• The Addams Family motto from the 1991 film, Sic gorgiamus allos subjectos nunc, allegedly meaning "we gladly feast on those who would subdue us". The correct Latin version of that motto would be something like "Qui nos opprimere velint, illos libenter devoramus", which translated more literally is: "Who would subdue us, them we gladly devour." (The order is unusual in English, but it is natural in Latin.).''
• In Thir13en Ghosts, the Big Bad's ultimate plan involves an elaborate device called the "Ocularis Infernum", which the movie states is Latin for "the Eye of Hell". There are some problems with this: "ocularis" is an adjective that means "eye-like", and "infernum", while correct, is not in the proper (genitive) case. "Ocularis Infernum" translates to "the eye-like hell". "Eye of hell" would be "Oculus Inferni".
• Supplemental material for the Alien franchise states that the titular alien species was given the name Internecivus raptus, or "murderous thief."
• The Big Bad in Enchanted makes all her magical incantations in something Latinesque.
• The Stoner Flick J-Men Forever has the motto of the J-Men as "U Cannabis Smokem."
• The original version of Disney film The Shaggy Dog and its sequel The Shaggy DA had the incantation "in canis corpore transmuto" — which in real Latin would mean "I change into the body of a dog".
• The beginning of the escape sequence from Johnny Dangerously has one of his Mooks pretending to be a priest giving him the last rites:
  Charley: Dominus vobiscum nabisco. Espiritu sanctum. De gustibus. Me gustibus. You gustibus. We missed the bus. They missed the bus. When's the next bus? Summa cum laude. Magna cum laude. The radio's too laude. Adeste fidelis. Centra fidelis. High fidelis. Post meridian. Ante meridian. Uncle meridian. All of the little meridians. Magna carta. Master charga. Dum procellas. Lotsa Vitalis.
• Played for Laughs in Top Secret!. A prison chaplain attends to soon-to-be-executed with his share of chanting. Some proper Latin does get included in the mix, "Coitus interruptus" for instance.
• Parodied in the climactic fight against Juggernaut in Deadpool 2, where a chanting chorus is giving Ominous Latin Chanting. Upon closer inspection, rather they are saying "Fighting dirty", "You can't stop this motherfucker!" and "Holy shitballs!"

Literaturus

• Most of the spells in Harry Potter were (loosely) based on Latin ("Expelliarmus", "Wingardium Leviosa", etc.) Most of them sounded decent, but occasionally one more obvious would enter the mix, such as "Petrificus Totalus" — the Full Body Bind, or "Riddikulus", the spell to turn a Boggart into something hilarious. It's also used to give several characters punny names (Lupin the werewolf, Ludo the gaming official, etc). This becomes especially amusing in the audiobooks read by Stephen Fry, who actually knows Latin. It's funny to hear him giving real pronunciation to fake words.
  • Interestingly, the way the spells are combined is familiar to anyone who knows what Latin/Greek roots are in English, but in Latin, they're gibberish. There is a Latin translation of at least the first two books, creating an untinetionally hilarious juxtaposition, as the spells are left as-is in the narrative while everything else is translated.
• The eponymous wizard in The Dresden Files straight-up admits he's using quasi-Latin or pseudo-Latin, in so many words, with spells like "Fuego!" for fire (when he needed even more fire, we even got "Fuegoso! Pyrofuego!"), "Forzare!" for force and "Ventas servitas" for wind. They're his three favourite standby spells. The Faux-Latin words apparently are helpful foci for concentrating the energy that allows magic to happen. (Other wizards have been described as using Japanese, Sumerian, Greek, and Egyptian-based spell invocations in the books, but the exact words are not given.) In this particular case, it's important that he not use proper Latin words, because the words of a spell become inextricably bound with the use of magic in a wizard's mind — and while he wouldn't run the risk of accidentally casting spells when simply speaking Latin^note which is the lingua franca of the wizarding community), Harry says that words in foreign, unfamiliar languages provide a sort of insulation from the raw power of a spell for a wizard's mind. One time in Fool Moon he cast a spell when he couldn't speak: The spell worked fine, but he was badly disoriented for some time after.
  • On top of that, his actual Latin is horrible. And if he learned it better, using actual Latin for spells would no longer work, as the buffer would no longer be provided. No one uses spells in real languages that they actually know, mostly to protect themselves from that backlash.
  • In a short story, he once terrified someone by dramatically intoning, "Intimidatus dorkus maximus!"
  • A flashback in one of the books provides a humorous spin on the concept. Young Harry had trouble casting a simple spell to light a candle, and would often cheat by using a cigarette lighter when his mentor Justin Dumorne wasn't looking. Eventually, Dumorne admonished Harry that he'd have to do it the right way because he wouldn't always be able to "flick his Bic."^note An old advertising jingle for Bic lighters. Inspiration struck Harry, and he finally managed to light the candle with the incantation "Flickum Biccus", to Dumorne's amusement.
• Finding a mysterious fossil of a never-before-seen organism, one of the protagonists of Eric Flint and Ryk E. Spoor's Boundary names it Bemmius secordi. The secordi is for the Secord family, on whose land it was found. Only a few people catch on that the Bemmius is her covert reference to "Bug Eyed Monster", as she's convinced it's the fossil of an alien but dares not to say so openly.
• Averted in H. Beam Piper's Little Fuzzy, where the narration specifically discusses how the scientific nomenclature of The Future no longer requires Latin or Greek terminology (or, evidently, several other established rules), and the newly-discovered aboriginal life-form on the colony world is officially designated Fuzzy sapiens.
• The Discworld novels are primarily set in or around Ankh-Morpork, where Latatian, or "very bad doggy Latin", was the former language. As a result, the books have so many examples it almost qualifies for its own sub-page. A favorite joke of Pratchett's is to present English expressions in Latin, where they make no sense literally.
  • For starters, the city's mottos are: Quanti canicula ille in fenestra, or "How much is that doggie in the window," and Merus in pectum et in aquam, or "Pure in heart and water", for a city whose river is so polluted you could skateboard across it.
  • The City Watch's motto is Fabricati Diem Pvnc, apparently an abbreviated form of a previous motto (Fabricati Diem, Pvncti Agvnt Celeriter — "make the day, the moments will pass quickly"), which LOOKS as though it means "make my day, punk", but doesn't - but one of the members is convinced it means "To Protect and Serve".
  • This became a plot point in Feet of Clay, where the old-fashioned villain announced all of his plans through heraldry mottos that contained very bad Latin puns. If anyone on the Watch had been of a more punny disposition, they might have figured it out fifty pages in (Vetinari actually did, but he let the scheme go ahead anyway because it gave Vimes something to do). What tips Vimes off that the heraldry official was involved was that the actual poisoner's motto had the pun in plain English; when he translates it to Latin it's a pun on the type of poison.
  • The motto of Lord Vetinari is "Sic non confectus, non reficiat" which is said to translate as "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."^note The actual translation: "If it is not worn out by age, it is not, let him eat."
  • Occult uses of Canis Latinicus include the Tome of Eldritch Lore Liber Paginarum Fulvarum, which translates as "The Book of Yellow Pages".
  • The related Necrotelicomnicon comes from the same dictionary. ^note Literally, the Telephone Book of the Dead.
  • The motto for Unseen University is Nunc id Vides, Nunc ne Vides, or "Now you see it, now you don't."
  • The Fool's Guild has Dico, Dico, Dico, or "I say, I say, I say" — a classic stage performer's line.
  • In Jingo, a character received an honorary degree from Unseen University entitled Doctorum Adamus cum Flabello Dulci. "Doctor of Sweet Fanny Adams", British slang for "fuck all". Possibly a reference to Private Eye's honorary degrees (see below).
    • The wizards at the UU weren't especially happy about awarding an "honorary degree" to a Klatchian Prince, so they deliberately made up a fake name. As it turns out, the Prince is quite familiar with "Latatian," resulting in a rather awkward moment. "The Prince says it is Doctor of Sweet Fanny Adams. Oh, how we are laughing."
  • Elsewhere in the same book, Vimes comes upon the remains of a statue of General Tacticus (an ancient Morporkian war hero, better at conquering than Alexander the Great), the plinth of which bears the motto "Ab hoc possum videre domum tuum," or "I can see your house from up here." This is noted to have been both a boast and a threat.
  • The motto of the extended Death family is Non Timetis Messor. The literal translation is Have No Timidity Towards Him Who Gathers The Harvest, or in plain English, Don't Fear The Reaper.
    • Pratchett took this as the motto on his own coat of arms when he was knighted (in proper Latin, "Noli Timere Messorem"). Now consider that he was suffering from a terminal illness...
  • The Ecksian version of Unseen University has Nullus Anxietas ("No Worries") written over the front gates.
  • Also "Nulli Sheilae sanguineae": No bloody Sheilas.
  • Sir Terry used to sign copies of The Last Continent with Nullus Anxietas, and also B'Diem! ("bono diem" is Latin for "good day", although it wouldn't have been used as a greeting. "B'diem" is therefore Canis Latinicus for "G'day!")
  • Lovable Coward Rincewind has, on separate occasions, been heard to exclaim "Stercus, stercus, stercus, moriturus sum" (Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, I am about to die!) and "Morituri Nolumus Mori" (we who are about to die, don't want to).
  • Albert's "Sodomy non sapiens" ("buggered if I know")
  • In a similar vein, Nanny Ogg translates her favorite Bawdy Song, for Casanunda's benefit, as "Il Porcupino Nil Sodomy Est" ("The Hedgehog Can Never Be Buggered"). Naturally, the full lyrics are never given.
  • Quoting this stuff is, of course, a favorite pastime of the Lawyers Guild and by extension, its head Mr. Slant. Amusingly a lot of what he says sounds like complete nonsense, like citing someone should be released from prison on the grounds of something that translates as "pockets full of fish", but it has actual precedent in Ankh-Morpork law.^note A man was thrown into a lake, but since he came out with his pockets filled with fish, the judge determined that the whole experience had been a net benefit and the thrower could not be prosecuted. This is a thematic reference to real-world legal examples known by funny names, such as the "fertile octogenarian", the "unborn widow", and the "magical gravel pit", all three being barely possible absurdities spawned by a technicality of inheritance law known as the "rule against perpetuities".
  • In Night Watch, Slant also has the line: "Ave! duci novo, similis duci seneci" ("Meet the new boss, same as the elder boss"). Which he then jokingly repeats as: "Ave! Bossa nova, similis bossa seneca". Yeah, that's right: Dog Latatian.
  • Jingo has him quote the doctrine of "acquiris quodcumque rapis" ("you get what you grab") in relation to the territorial dispute at the heart of the novel's plot.
  • One of the books is titled Carpe Jugulum ("get the jugular" or "go for the throat") after the motto of a family of Vampires.
  • In The Wee Free Men, the talking toad translates the Feegles' Pre-Asskicking One-Liners into Latatian legalese to defend them from spectral lawyers conjured by the Queen of the Elves (entering a plea of vis-ne faciem capite repletam, "would you like a face full of head?" and citing potest-ne mater tua suere, amice, "can your mother sew, pal?^note A traditional Scottish prelude to an act of violence, usually concluded by the words "Then tell her tae stitch that!"")
  • In I Shall Wear Midnight, a certain village uses the book Magavenatio Obtusis, or "Witch-Hunting For Dumb People". Of course, the book was actually written by Miss Tick, a witch.
  • In Small Gods, Koomi of Smale's work of heretical theology Ego Video Liber Deorum is translated in a footnote as Gods: A Spotter's Guide, but the real joke is that a more direct translation would be I-Spy Book of Gods.
• Good Omens: When Adam and his friends play "Spanish Inquisition", Wensleydale points out that since the Spanish Inquisition was Catholic, you're supposed to speak Latin. But since he doesn't know any actual Latin, he says things like Benedictine inna decanter.
• The poem "The Motor Bus" by A.D. Godley declines "motor bus" in every singular and plural case as if it actually were a Latin noun phrase. Which, technically, it is, except bus is a contraction of "omnibus", which is dative plural already — the nominative singular would be "omnis". Chalk it up to poetic license.
• Being set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, the Ciaphas Cain novels are similarly lousy with the stuff:
  • Caves of Ice takes place on the frozen planet of Simia Orichalchae (which roughly translates as "brass monkey", as in "cold enough to freeze the balls off..."). There's also a reference to the planet Nusquam Fundumentibus ("arse end of nowhere").
  • Duty Calls takes place on Periremunda ("lost world") and includes a plateau named Aceralbaterra, which translates as Maple White Land, the name of the plateau in Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World (1912). Bonus points because after being discovered by Acer Alba, Periremunda was rediscovered by "Magos Provocare," a name that could be rendered as "Professor Challenger."
  • An undescribed type of food mentioned more than once is "soylens viridiens".
• "Archaic" in Megan Whalen Turner's novels appears to be a mix of this and kyneio:s hellenizesthai.
• Used deliberately in The Handmaid's Tale, when Offred discovered a scratched phrase in Latin — "Nolite te bastardes carborundorum" — in her room left by the previous Handmaid, a super big thing because women in Gilead aren't allowed to read or write. When she asks Fred what it means, he identifies it as an old Dog Latin joke — translated roughly as "Don't let the bastards grind you down" — and makes reference to a couple of other similar jokes. Of course, the meaning is far from a joke to Offred.
• The Dr. Seuss character Thidwick the moose is labeled as Moosus antlerus. (For the record, the real scientific term for moose is Alces alces.)
• 1066 and All That describes the cause of Henry I's death as a surfeit of palfreys. This is noted on a genealogical chart of kings as "obit surfeiti palfreyorum," or "o.s.p." for short. (Normally, "o.s.p." is an abbreviation for "obit sine prole," meaning having died without issue.)
• Farmer Giles of Ham, a comic short story written by J. R. R. Tolkien and set in pseudo-Medieval England, contains a good deal of Latin, in place names, inscriptions, and so forth. It is all correct, Professor Tolkien being a linguist, but this trope is still acknowledged and played with. While dogs could generally speak in the vulgar tongue but not "Book-latin", the farmer's dog Garm "could not talk even dog-latin".
• Tales of the Five Hundred Kingdoms: In The Fairy Godmother, it is said that "dragonets [...] were the much smaller, unintelligent subspecies of Draconis Sapiens". Draconis Sapiens is presumably the designation for sapient dragons, which appear later in the series.
• Lawrence Block's Me Tanner, You Jane:
  As the alcohol assumed its rightful place in my bloodstream, it became clear to me that I did not very much care about Sam Bowman—if he was a real secret agent, death was part of the game, and if he was a fraud, sic semper bolonis.
• molesworth has a few examples, being set in a boys' private school with a lead character who constantly flunks Latin, but the standout is probably Caesar adsum jam forte, Brutus aderat. Caesar sic in omnibus, Brutus sic inat, which is a nonsense sentence when translated but sounds like a joke in English.^note "Caesar had some jam for tea, Brutus had a rat. Caesar sick in omnibus; Brutus sick in hat.

Livus Actionicus Televisionus

• In Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis, the Ancient language is quasi-Latin — for instance, the ancient term for "Stargates" is "Astria Porta". The in-universe explanation is that it is actually Latin's mother tongue, even though the Ancients on Earth supposedly died out by 3,000 BC — long before Latin began to form. Although, one learns quickly to avoid thinking too hard about anything scientific when watching these shows.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer: In an early episode, an important text is a cypher deliberately made to look like Latin, but which is actually complete gibberish. Before anybody figures this out, the closest they get to working out a real sentence is "debase the beef canoe."
• Charmed (1998) starts out as an aversion, since the spells in the Book of Shadows were all in English and the sisters create their own spells in English as well. It's rife with it in later seasons, though. "A Witch in Time" features a warlock whose spells are invented Latin words. ("Consilio"? (for "Conceal") "Incendiares globus"? "TELEPORTATO"?) Our good friends at Television Without Pity even baptized the show's made-up Latin as "Craptin."
• The Red Green Show: The Pretentious Latin Motto of Possum Lodge is "Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati", which rather fittingly means "When all else fails, play dead".
• Mr. Bean: The theme song is "Ecce homo qui est faba", which basically means "Behold the man who is a bean."
• Father Ted, being a sitcom about the Catholic Church, features a couple of instances of this. In "Grant Unto Him Eternal Rest", Father Dougal tries to administer the Last Rites, with predictable results ("Eh...totus tuus dominimus canus Costacurta Roberto Carlos amen"). In "A Christmassy Ted", a priest is seen practicing for a Mass from a TelePrompTer:
  Priest: Dominus albe turum...you know what, change the "dominus" to "canus".
• One episode of music-centric Panel Game Nevermind The Buzzcocks lead to panellist Bill Bailey, on answering a question incorrectly, responding with "Quiz Poppius Trivialis". After which, Mark Lamarr re-responded "Buzzcockius No Pointata".
• Power Rangers Mystic Force is surprisingly good about using actual Latin, Greek, and Welsh words (if not proper use of either grammar or Magic A Is Magic A to match), but a few stinkers got by, such as "Hilarium Shenolia".
• The Colbert Report's motto for Stephen going to Iraq? What else: Veritasiness.
  • Jon Stewart has been known to play with this trope on The Daily Show as well. "And therefore, ipso facto, Wingardiam Leviosa..."
• Speaking of Iraq, Generation Kill has a kinda mixed up one: "semper Gumby", "always flexible".
  • More of a Real Life example, as the phrase doesn't actually originate in the show but was already in use long before the show was pitched.
• Wizards of Waverly Place's many spells that are just normal phrases with Latin suffixes slapped on. According to Word of God most of the spells are based off crew members' names.
• Doctor Who
  • Lampshaded when the Doctor and Martha help Shakespeare defeat the Carrionite witches by an adlibbed spell:
  Shakespeare: "Banished like a tinker's cuss, I say to thee..." (he again looks to the Doctor)
  The Doctor: Uh... (he looks to Martha)
  Martha Jones: Expelliarmus!
  The Doctor: Expelliarmus!
  Shakespeare: "Expelliarmus!"
  The Doctor: Good old J.K.!
  • Double Lampshaded when you recall that the David Tennant was previously Barty Crouch, Jr. of The Goblet of Fire fame.
  • In "The Almost People", the Doctor calls Rory "Roranicus Pondicus" in reference to his time as "Rory the Roman".
• The Worst Witch was using this to make spells sound cool before Harry Potter was a gleam in J.K.'s eye. The show lampshades it every now and then as one episode had Charlie pronouncing a word wrong and it turned Ethel into a duck. Another had Enid try to come up with a spell to get them food, "send us some snacks and make it hasty" and bales of hay fell down on them. It's worth noting that in the original books the actual spell words were not given.
• In the series finale of Sports Night, the station is purchased by a company called Quo Vadimus.
• The Supernatural episode "Hunteri Heroici" features an homage to the old Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote cartoons. While Dean is chasing the episode's villain, the screen pauses to give Latin sounding captions to Dean and the bad guy.
• M*A*S*H:
  • When Klinger is facing a court-martial for theft, he selects Maj. Winchester to be his defense attorney. Winchester tries to raise an objection of "Unum pilule acetylsalicylicus, tres in diem, post sebum." The JAG prosecutor is flummoxed by the term, having no idea what it means. The Judge does, however, and orders Winchester to translate. Sheepishly, he admits that he was objecting on the grounds of "Aspirin, three times a day." (According to IMDB, the actual Latin would be, "Unum pilula acidum acetylsalicylicus, tris in die, post cibum", and literally means "One tablet of aspirin, three times a day, after meals.")
  • When Klinger is facing a court-martial for theft, Hawkeye and BJ arrive just before the JAG was about to render a guilty verdict with new evidence to exonerate Klinger. BJ announced, "Just a bit of habeus corpus, corpus dilectus, delightful, delicious and de-lovely.
• The rat host of Horrible Histories discusses this in the course of explaining that the Romans made sandwiches before Earl Sandwich ever did: "...so we should probably call it a sandwichus! Hahahaha! 'Cause that's - if you put an ''-us'' on the ends of words, it makes it sound Roman...?"
• In the Ever Decreasing Circles episode "Manure", a miscommunication with a tractor driver results in a pile of manure being dumped on Martin Bryce's driveway instead of that of his next-door neighbour Paul Ryman; Martin and Paul's friend Hilda Hughes accidentally makes things worse by hiring a skip to use to get rid of the manure, only to discover that the contract stipulates that they will not pick it up for two days. Paul manages to persuade them to take it back early by telling them that the terms of the contract are "de profundis mundi and extincto craptor". Which, he happily tells Martin, is utter gibberish, but it sounds like legalese, so it works anyway.
• The opening sequence of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver has explanatory cards akin to the periodic table filled with these (John himself: "Hostus Mostus", a satellite: "Torrens Pornarum"), along with the occasional correct Latin ("Tempus Fugit", time flies: time; "Deus ex Machina", god in the machine: handgun).
• In one episode of Modern Life Is Goodish, Dave Gorman purchases a name for an unnamed species of insect, and picks "vitamoderna bonaishiiest" as a very loose Latin translation of the show's title.

Musicus

• The French MithrilPop band ERA uses a fictional Latin / Romanesque-sounding language in practically all their songs.
• One Blue Öyster Cult album is titled Cultösaurus Erectus.
• The debut album of the Swedish band Candlemass is titled Epicus Doomicus Metallicus. This is how Doom Metal genre got its name.
• Toward the fade-out of XTC's Towers of London, Andy Partridge repeatedly sings "Londinium," interspersed with vocalizing. The song being something of a tribute to London's wonderfulness (nonetheless acknowledging certain brutal realities), Andy said he imagined it could be a fitting word for the magical substance of which London was made.
• The title of Blue Cheer's album Vincebus Eruptum is allegedly Latin for "controlled chaos," but "vincebus" is not a real Latin word.
• According to The Other Wiki, composer Karl Jenkins had no idea that his Adiemus albums were (almost) named "we shall approach" in Latin. There are no actual lyrics on the albums, but vocalizations meant to function as part of the instrumental background.
• The progressive metal band Pain of Salvation has lots of pseudo-Latin song names. Daniel Gildenlöw explains: "I'd say the trick is not to see the titles as pure Latin, but a connecting thread woven by words in Latin. Thus, Lilium Cruentus is formed by the words for lily and stained by blood and is preferably interpreted as a loss of innocence and virginity, see? There are no rules here, just triggers to the mind."
• Globus uses Rule of Cool Latin-esque lyrics. A debate between some Latin scholars/students over the song Preliator contains a link to this page.
• British folk-rockers Steeleye Span charted with an a capella song in Latin called Gaudete (well, it was Christmas). As scholars pointed out, the lyrics were in the debased dog-latin used by mediaeval monks.
• Country Humor singer Ray Stevens uses this in the song The Haircut Song when the "half-catholic, half-baptist" barber prays "Oh, Lord, for these haircuts we are about to receive may we be truly thankful. Dominus Passem, pax probiscus, post-mortem et tu Brute, puella carborundum"
• BT's ESCM album has a track called Orbitus Teranium, a corruption of "orbis terrarum".
• The industrial band Black Rain has Endourban, whose name is a compound of the Greek prefix endo and the Latin adjective urbanum. The proper Latin-derived word would be "intraurban", which doesn't have the same ring.
• The parody-metal band Gloryhammer starts their song "The Siege Of Dunkeld" with this trope up to 11: "Regis Dundoniensis / Furor Apocalyptus / Magus Calamitosus / Bellis Intergalactus"
  • Gloryhammer is, as has been mentioned, a parody band, and have skewered every single Heavy Mithril trope from every possible angle. Some of their songs revel in this trope, others have grammatically correct and perfectly pronounced Classical Latin, but lyrics meaning something along the lines of "Something that will sound awesome in Latin".
  • "The Fires of Ancient Cosmic Destiny" even contains the line "Vanitati Latinae Canentis", which translates very literally as "chanting nonsense in Latin"...in Latin.
• Discovery (Daft Punk Album) contains a track called Veridis Quo, which is a multi-level pun: "Veridisquo" = "Very Disco" = "Discovery".
• Canadian death/folk metal band Verbal Deception's first (and only) album is called Aurum Aetus Piraticus, which is Dog Latin for "golden age of piracy".

• The idea of elements ending in "-ium" (see Real Life below) was parodied in the alternate ending of Tom Lehrer's "The Elements":
  Lawrencium and Hahnium and lastly Rutherfordium
  If there are any others, I'm afraid I haven't heardium!

Podcastus

• All of the categories in Totalus Rankium, such as "Fightius Maximus" and "Opprobrium Crazium."

Poetricus

• Older Than Steam: The first recorded use of "fuck" in the English language is a poem, "Flen flyys" ("Fleas and flies"). It's Bowdlerized by making the last two lines Canis Latinicus: "Non sunt in celi/quia fuccant uuiuys of heli" ("They are not in heaven / Who fuck the wives of Ely.") Believe it or not, some of the lesser known poems in the Carmina Burana use this form of Bowdlerization as well. (They didn't make it into the Orff version.)

Printius Medius

• This New York Times op-ed.

Role Playus

• Abused in Open Blue with everything related to the Iormunean Imperium. Further abused by the self-proclaimed heir to the Imperium, the Axifloan Coalition.

Tabletopium Gamus

• The Imperium of Man in the Warhammer 40,000 universe uses Dog Latin as a translation convention^note Word of God has stated that it's not actually Dog Latin, but used to simulate what High Gothic would sound like to a Low Gothic speaker for High Gothic, an archaic language mainly used in formal settings.
  • Some examples include the Adeptus Astartes (Space Marines), Adeptus Mechanicus (engineering and science), Adeptus Ministorum aka the Ecclesiarchy (priests), and Departmento Munitorum (Military command & logistics). Place names show this too, along with what seems to be a healthy dose of gallows humour among the harried explorers and colonists who found themselves stuck on the nastier ones in ancient times. Examples include the ice worlds Simia Orichalchae and Nusquam Fundumentibus (respectively, Dog Latin for "Brass Monkey" and "Arse End of Nowhere").
  • Not all of the examples go down quite so easy, though — take the Administratum, Exterminatus, the Senatorum Imperialis. Then there are the various holy orders (or Ordos) of the Inquisition: Hereticus, Xenos (dealing with heretics and aliens, respectively) and Malleus, a reference to the Malleus Maleficarum (the Hammer of the Witches; the book used to prove that witches existed and how to deal with them), and calling yourselves the Order of the Witches doesn't really give the right impression. Thus, the Order of the Hammer of the Witches...
  • Oddly enough, some of their Latin is actually pretty much correct. The Inquisition's motto ("Innocentia Nihil Probat", Innocence Proves Nothing) is perfectly good Latin.
    • Understandable, as Games Workshop is based in the UK, and for many decades it was standard that English schoolchildren learn Latin.
  • It also happens in-universe: The Black Crusade rulebook specifies that people often choose a new name after becoming heretics, and some make one up in faux High Gothic.
  • Done deliberately in the mid 2010s due to copyright concerns. Good Latin would have been as hard to defend in court as the original, but sufficiently bad Latin can be trademarked. Thus the Space Marine line (a term the company had recently humiliated itself trying to prove it owned despite being a generic term that predates GW by decades) were now always called Adeptus Astartes, and the Imperial Guard acquired the rather silly Astra Militarum.
• Vampire: The Masquerade: In the Player's Guide to the Sabbat there are rules for dark thaumaturgy, including various rituals. One is named "Video Nefas". Considering it's a ritual used to magically spy on someone, the name was probably supposed to mean something like "evil vision". It actually translates to "(I) see a crime/wrongdoing."
• Vampire: The Requiem
  • The game features some odd Latin. "Lancea Sanctum"? "Ordo Dracul"? You can kind of tell they stuck random inflections (or no inflections, as the case may be) to words.
  • Requiem in Rome puts a small Retcon on the former — in the Roman Empire, the Lancea Sanctum were Lancea et Sanctum, but time and non-Latin-speaking vampires eventually warped the words. Except "Lancea et Sanctum" is even stranger, as they're supposed to be the order of Longinus' sacred spear — that is, his lancea sancta. Lancea et Sanctum literally means "the lance/spear and the holy thing".
    • Interestingly, in the German version of the game, the name of the Lancea Sancta is spelled correctly, ie Lancea Sancta. So no need for a justification. This could be due to the fact that Latin classes are still quite common in German High Schools so chances are high that one of the translators knew his Latin.
  • "Ordo Dracul" is stranger still: Dracul is not Latin, but Romanian for "the dragon" or "the devil"; the -ul ending translates as the article "the".
    • Given that the Ordo Dracul is named after "Dracula" (a Romanian vampire), despite most of them in this day and age not really caring about him, the Latin+Romanian nature of the Covenant's name makes a little more sense.
• Dungeons & Dragons
  • The original "Monster Manual" included Dog Latin versions of taxonomic names for its ten varieties of dragon (genus Draco). Some of these were puns, particularly the Draco Comes Stabuli, the "constable" or "copper" dragon.^note (The actual Latin translation of Comes Stabuli is "Count of the Stables".)
  • Gazetteer 10: "The Orcs of Thar", gives scientific names for the various humanoid subspecies. Of note, Kobolds receive "Canus Minor" (before being adjusted to be lizard-like rodents), and Gnolls receive "Canus Erectus" (despite being based off hyenas.)
  • The third edition undead manual, Libris Mortis, is a subversion (or a double subversion of good Latin). Most people assume it's supposed to mean Book of the Dead and gets it wrong — that would be Liber Mortis. On these grounds, much of the community calls it the "Book of Bad Latin". However, if you read the book's introduction, it turns out it's actually intended to mean From The Books of the Dead — for which it is actually quite correct. ^* Most Latin speakers would more naturally tend to include the word ex ("from"), but the ablative form libris implies that just fine, and the preposition is unnecessary.
• Third edition RuneQuest has this for nearly every monster. A notable example is Anatanthropus Donaldii, or "duck man from/of Donald", for the Gloranthan race known as ducks.

Toyus toyus

• The Boglins have three different scientific names: Boglinus humungus, Boglinus minimus and Boglinus liquidious.

Videus Gamus

• Deadly Rooms of Death: The True Tongue sometimes sounds like this, with words like "interrogatory" and "dictum".
• Myth: The Fallen Lords: the species of the trows has individuals bear names in pseudo-Latin. Besides, their ancient fallen city in level 22 has this writing on a wall as an easter egg: OSCULARIS TUI MATRIS CUM OS ISTE, "You kiss your mother with that mouth". Actual Latin would have been "oscularis matrem tuam ore isto".
• The unofficial "motto" of arcane casters on the Khyber server in Dungeons & Dragons Online is "Vene Vidi Igni" — which they translate as "I came, I saw, I set it on fire."
• Escape from Monkey Island has a bit of gratuitous Latin (the motto over the Hall of Justice on Lucre Island reads something like "Where is the booty?") This frustrates the main character, Guybrush, who eventually mutters something about wishing he had bought the Latin for Scummies book.
• Kingdom of Loathing has some fun with this. During The Quest for the Holy MacGuffin, you get a number of clues for various obstacles, some of which follow this trope. Such as:
  NOS NON NECESSITAS NULLAS AQUIA PERMISSIUM MATRISFORNICATIO EXURO
  "We don't need no water, let the motherfucker burn."
• The Sims
  • The Sims 2: University has a cowplant with the taxonomic label of Laganaphyllis simnovorii. No taurus or bovinae in sight, oddly enough. This is still a Meaningful Name, as when the cowplant gets hungry, it eats Sims (i.e. it is a simnovore).
    • laganum means cake, and (at least in The Sims 3) the cow plant produces a slice of cake to lure the Sims in. Presumably it also likes cake as well.
  • The Apartment Life expansion pack re-introduces magic into the series. The spells are Latin-sounding things like "Appello Simae", which summons other sims.
  • Bizarrely, The Sims Medieval, which you'd expect to use Dog Latin, hardly uses any.
• The 1989 release Keef the Thief featured such spells as "Flickus Bickus" and "Bandus Aidus."
• Taz: Wanted features the "Pachydermus Pongus" which is the name given to the elephant used in the "Elephant Pong" boss fight.
• Neverwinter Nights plays it more straight, spellcasters mutter one of three or four different phrases that don't appear to mean anything. It's not even entirely clear whether they're meant to be Latin or just Latin-sounding. They are tied to schools of magic, though, so Bull's Strength and Meteor Storm wouldn't have the same phrase, but Meteor Storm and Fireball would. Neverwinter Nights 2 uses the same exact incantation soundbites.
• The names of the skills in Donkey Kong 64 have dog-Latin translations.
• BlazBlue mixes actual Latin with Latin-sounding gibberish and oddly spelled words that might be Latin to provide us with "Nox Nyctores" (a type of weapons system) and "Arcus Diabolus Bolverk" (a variant of same). By contrast, "Novus Orbis Librarium" earns bonus points for being passable Latin for "New World Library".
• Lost: Via Domus is an egregious example. In the game, Locke translates the Title Drop as "The Way Home," which is apparently what the game creators meant, except that it would be Via Domum. This is actually pretty funny when you realize that it's the same mistake as in Life of Brian above. Most people just call it Lost: The Game though, because that's funny too.
• There's an online game called Gladiatus: Hero of Rome. It (ostensibly) involves playing as a Gladiator in Ancient Rome. The title is nothing short of weird, considering it seems to be a "Latinized" version of the word "gladiator." Especially considering that the Latin word for "gladiator" is, (surprise!) "gladiator". While gladiator essentially means sword-user (swordsman), gladiatus would be closer to someone on whom a sword is used, which fits, but probably not in the way they were hoping.
• Black Sigil uses this to differentiate spells from regular ol' abilities. "Nox Ico" and "Curo Orbis" may sound like Latin, but... at least in those two examples, the only mistake is leaving object nouns (which should be accusative) in the nominative.
• Lost Souls (MUD) has lots of this flying around, especially in the names of the mage guilds — Ordo Ignis Aeternis, Ordo Zephyrius Mutatoris, and the like.
• The background music in the world map phase of Rome: Total War contains actual Latin words as lyrics, but strung together with no regard for anything besides how they sound.
• In both Dungeon Keeper games, clicking on any one of your spells causes an evil-sounding voice to mutter real-world words that somehow relate to the spell being cast. Some of the spells that appear in both games, use a different phrase in each incarnation. Examples of such incantations: Aggressum Attractus - call to arms ("attract aggressors"), Otus Diabolus - evil sight, Electro Deus - lightning, Vitae - heal, Mortis - disease, (from the 2nd game) Impius Factoria - create imp, Expressus Americanus - create money.
• Of all the Pokémon, only Oddish has a confirmed scientific name: "Oddium Wanderus".
• In Final Fantasy VIII, the opening song is called "Liberi Fatali", intended to mean "children of fate" or "fated children". "Liberi" is a nominative plural noun meaning "children", which they got right. "Fatali" is a singular dative/ablative adjective whose root is "fatalis," or "fated," and while the word is right, the case and number are wrong, the proper phrase should be "Liberi Fatales" or "Liberi Fati." Word of God says that this was an oversight.
• Jet Set Willy includes a room called "Nomen Luni". The correct Latin would be "Nomen Lunae" since Luna is a feminine noun.
  • The room in question was a Take That! at the dog-Latin motto of rival software house Imagine: "Nomen Ludi" ("the name of the game").
• The manual for Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun - Firestorm includes "scientific" notes of Dr. Boudreau. These notes have information on the new Tiberium-based lifeforms that have "evolved" in contaminated areas. One of these is commonly known as the Tiberium fiend. The eggheads felt the need to label it Canis Tiberius, even though Boudreau herself points out that the fiend has nothing in common with canines, except looking vaguely similar. Dogs aren't generally known for shooting Green Rock spikes at you from their backs. They also aren't horse-sized.
• Super Mario Bros.
  • The scientific name of the Big Piranha Plant is Piranhacus giganticus.
  • Mario's species itself is even referred to as "Homo Nintendonus" in a Nintendo character guide.
• Beyond Good & Evil is full of these. All the Beast Folk have taxonomical names that end in Sapiens but are of different genus; For example, Jade's "uncle", Pey'j, is a "Sus Sapiens" or "Wise Pig". Apparently the sentient versions of an animal get the 'sapiens' species no matter what.
• In Dragonsphere, the members of the race called the "Soptus Ecliptus" (aside from their caliph) tend to speak in a Latinate language (e.g. PE KA DOLI MEKRATUM, EP KA LI ABRASTUM, which means "If you don't prepare, you will be late"); the caliph, however, speaks excellent English.
• The soundtrack to Warcraft III and World of Warcraft contains a lot of choir parts that are sung in Canis Latinicus (the words are mostly actual Latin words, but the grammar is... basically nonexistent).
• Drakensang 2: The River of Time has spells spoken in a latinish-sounding language, including "Corpofrigo" (Ice Breath), "Invoco Elementum" (Summon Fire Elemental), "Fulminictus" (Flash), "Potestas" (Strength Booster). A couple of spells are said in simil-german, like the blinding flash "Blitz ich finde". These spells originate in the tabletop RPG Das Schwarze Auge, on which the Drakensang games are based.
• Team Fortress 2:
  • The Demoman's family motto^note "In Regionem Caecorum Rex Est Luscus", in English: "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king" is off by one letter; it should be Regione.
  • During Halloween events, the magical spells generally use this format:
  Merasmus: "Mortis Attagastah! Staffus Attackum! Hurlus Bombinus! Mortis Longdiiistimus!"
• One of the messages Tumblebugs displays when you've lost all your lives is "Quando omni flunkus moritati: When all else fails, play dead."
• Warhammer 40,000 has been mentioned above, and the Imperium's Latin-esque language occasionally carries over into the video game adaptations, such as Dawn of War 2 with the theme of the Space Marines.
• In Last Word the motto of St. Lauden's is "Civilitus civilititum." Lampshaded when Whitty Gawship labels it "complete gibberish of the finest degree."
• The Magic Knight tetralogy has fun with this, with spells such as "Candelium Illuminatus" and "Quiticus Gamus".
• Many video games, especially Shoot Em Ups, have adopted Latin or pseudo-Latin words as titles. In most cases, the names have no explanation other than sounding cool, but a few come close to being meaningful:
  • Gradius may have been intended to be gladius, Latin for "sword."
  • Ultionus: A Tale of Petty Revenge almost correctly invokes the Latin word ultionis, which means "of revenge."
• In The Elder Scrolls series, the Imperial race is heavily influenced by Ancient Rome. Most have Latin-sounding names and Latin sounding words (real or otherwise) permeate through their culture.
• In Shining Song Starnova, Mr. Producer claims that "Starnova"—the name he's given to the group of idol singers which he manages—is Latin for "new star".
• The first boss of Daxter, the Altum sonatur Metal Bug queen, derives her name from the phrase “Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur” (Which literally translates to “Whatever anyone says in Latin sounds profound”).
• Some of the planets in Jazz Jackrabbit have Latin-sounding names which are sometimes actual Latin words (Exoticus). On the other hand, planets like Carrotus, Orbitus and Industrius use the "-us" stem that is specific to masculine nouns and adjectives, even though the respective Latin words are feminine nouns, thus carrota, orbita and industria.

Webus Animaticum

• The Lazer Collection features Shoopus ma woopus.
• ASDF Movie 11 includes a girl turning her father into an ice cream cone using the spell Memeicus icecreamicus. In the animation itself, the line is reversed making it hard to discern.

Webus Comicus

• The Order of the Stick
  • Parodied with strip #253, where Larry Gardener (himself a parody of Harry Potter) casts Stoppus Badguyus.
  • The strip also uses it to parody Ominous Latin Chanting here.
• From Loserz: this strip, second panel. Technically, that should be "Slutta Maxima".'
• In The KAMics we have the dinosaur Teinoknemesaurus kamus, the magic spells Petrifacto, and Unpetrifacto
• Wizard School parodies with, among other spells, "Bastardized Latinium."
• In El Goonish Shive, the drumstick wands Tedd makes require actual latin codephrases to cast spells with. However, when Ashley and Diane daydream about abuse of said wands they use this instead.

Webus Originalia

• The National Hockey League's Columbus Blue Jackets had a game day poster◊ against the Arizona Coyotes doing this in a Wile E Coyote And The Roadrunner-like manner.
• In Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, the seal of the Evil League of Evil bears the phrase "Homines Non Boni Seriose" which can be translated as "Seriously Not Good Guys."
• Perpetual Players Has the Communionists who speak latin without the cases despite coming from a country that mainly speaks greek.

Westerneria Animatea

• The Dragon Prince: Ancient Draconic, the language used for magic incantations, is represented using Latin. The terminology is mostly based on actual Latin, but some loose-and-fast translation lead to some spells not meaning quite what the writers likely intended them to. For instance, a freezing breath spell, Aspiro Frigis, seems to mean something like "cold wind" — but frigis is actually the second-person singular form of frigere, "to fry" (the Latin term for "to freeze" is glaciare), leading the phrase to mean something like "I breathe, you fry" — rather ironically, given the spell's effects.
• Pixie, Dixie and Mr. Jinks: In a Cartoon Network interstitial short, "Harassacat", Mr. Jinx gets slapped with a Hollywood Restraining Order that keeps him from chasing Pixie and Dixie. After Mr. Jinx finds a loophole and goes back to business as usual, the short ends with him saying "Me hatesum meesum maximum! That's legal for I hates meeses to pieces!"
• Winx Club: The American translation, probably trying to inspire comparisons to Harry Potter, uses a Latin-based spell system (notably absent in both the Italian original and the British translation), giving us many such gems, including a one-time spell whose sole purpose was to turn a motorcycle into a pig. The incantation? "Oinkus Interceptus".
• Cyberchase includes a recurring location called Radopolis (rad), ruled over by King Dudicus (dude). In case you couldn't guess, they were a Totally Radical Planet of Hats.
• Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner: Most cartoons introduce the pair with fake scientific names usually derived in this manner. Examples include Speedometrus Rapidus for the Road Runner, and Famishus Famishus for the Coyote. One cartoon even gave the Road Runner's "beep, beep" a scientific name ("beepus-beepus").
  • Tiny Toon Adventures had one short called "Love Stinks", which introduced Calamity Coyote as "Devius Coyotius", Little Beeper as "Expedious Birdius", and Fifi le Fume as "Sexius Skunkius". Amazing that the censors let that pass...
  • Subverted in 2003's "The Whizzard of Ow" in which the actual binomial names were used: Canis latrans for the Coyote ("Noisy dog" — ironic when you realize Wile E. almost never speaks), Geococcyx californianus for the Road Runner ("Californian Cuckoo that runs on land").
  • The Bugs/Wile E. outing "Rabbit's Feat" has Wile E. in pursuit of the common western rabbit. "Rabbitus Idioticus Delicious...I believe that's the scientific term for it." (He's probably thinking of the desert cottontail rabbit, or Sylvilagus audubonii — but based on his accent, Bugs is probably an eastern cottontail, or Sylvilagus floridanus.)
  • And in "Stop! Look! And Hasten!" Wile E.'s Burmese Tiger Trap catches a Burmese Tiger, Surprisibus! Surprisibus! (Actual scientific name: Panthera tigris.)
  • Space Jam applies the gag to the Nerdlucks (who would become the Monstars), as when Bugs unveils a blueprint on them, below each one are the scientific names "Wormius Repulsus", "Newtus Grodius", "Dopus Elongatus", "Rotundus Tempermentus", and "Minimus Whinius".
• The Simpsons:
  • "You are, as they say in Latin, a dorkus malorkus."
  • One episode gave a direct nod to the Road Runner series by having a freeze-framed Bart and Homer identified as "Bratus Donthaveacowious", and "Homo Neadrathalus" respectively.
  • Another Road Runner parody appears at the beginning of "The Scorpion's Tale", where a photorealistic roadrunner and coyote and labeled Propertus Warnerbros and Copyrightus MCMXLIX respectively. Otto then runs over the roadrunner and is labeled Licensis suspendibus.
  • The seal of the mayor's office reads "Corruptus In Extremis".
• Captain N: The Game Master: Kid Icarus establishes his overwhelming Ancient Gromeness by ending random words with "-icus".
• South Park:
  • "Rectus! Dominus! Cheesy Poofs!" Additionally, a secret group surrounding the ancestor of Peter Rabbit, the true pope, introduced him by chanting "Here Comes Peter Cotton Tail" in Dog Latin (which become obvious when they get to "Hippitus, Hoppitus").
  • The motto of the Planetarium reads: "Transmitte Me Sursum Caledoni"
• In King of the Hill Bobby was (nearly!) forced to drink Caninus Spiritus or "Dog Blood" by a cult. There is also "Destroyus Bobbyus Hillus" as he leaves the group.
• One episode of Teen Titans begins by identifying Control Freak (Couchus Potaticus) and Beast Boy (Animalus Switcheroonium). And then it just keeps on going like that.
• Transformers tend to have names with Latin influences. Examples include Optimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Fortress Maximus, and Bruticus Maximus. Others are faux-Latin, such as "Jhiaxus" and "Rodimus Prime". The name "Jhiaxus" was originally a stealth gag. When writer Simon Furman was tasked to write the Transformers: Generation 2 comic book, he suspected (rightly) that the series would be canceled shortly due to unrealistic sales expectations. He therefore named the main Decepticon Big Bad after the pun "Gee, axe us!" The reveal that The Fallen's canon name is "Megatronus Prime" suggests that this trend will continue in the future.
• Sheep in the Big City parodies the Roadrunner and Coyote with subtitles showing Sheep as "Sheepious Zipius" and Private Public as "A Latin joke about Private Public" in the episode "Daddy Shearest".
• The Spectacular Spider-Man: In one episode, with the activity of the day in class being rope-climbing and Harry too busy talking to Harry to pay attention, at one point Peter has to tell him, "Carpe ropum".
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • "Feeling Pinkie Keen": Twilight Sparkle attempts to study Pinkie Pie's strange abilities, and dubs her subject "Pinkius pieicus" (based on the humor of the episode, likely a Wile E Coyote And The Roadrunner homage).
  • Discord is a "Draconequus". While this usage is on a number of RPG forums, it's clearly an example of mashing together the Latin words for dragon and horse.
• Most of the spells uttered by Cedric the sorcerer in Sofia the First fall under this trope.
• Sabrina: The Animated Series uses this in-universe with a Lampshade Hanging. Sabrina keeps forgetting the actual incantations and casts spells using random Latin words. For example, using her wand and saying the Latin for 'poison ivy' imprisons her teacher inside a bush of the stuff. And by using the Latin for 'rabbit', she causes the Monster of the Week to start multiplying like rabbits.
• In The Boondocks, resident Boomerang Bigot Uncle Ruckus claimed once that he had biggus backus tumoritus, "Or whatever woid that my tiny negro brain and big black lips can't pronounce."
• In Gravity Falls, the spell Gideon uses is actual Latin, and most of Dipper's spell is, too. However, "Inceptus Nolanus Overratus!" from the latter is a case of this. (As well as a Take That! at Inception.)
• The House of Mouse short "How to Ride a Bicycle" has Goofy labeled Goofilius Bikepedalus.
• The beginning of the Timon & Pumbaa episode "Sense and Senegambia", in a parody of Wile E Coyote And The Roadrunner, has a cricket labeled "Delicius insectius", but subverts this by labeling Pumbaa as Phacochoerus aethiopicus (the actual scientific name of the desert warthog).
• Johnny Test had one episode parodying Road Runner, which identified Johnny as “Flamingus Headicus-and-Footicus” and Dukey as “Hairicus Sidekickus”.
• The Patrick Star Show: In "The Yard Sale", a Roman flashback includes coliseum spectators chiseling the words "Weus Lovus Moronicus" into stone.

Realisea Livum

• Henry Schoolcraft named the source of the Mississippi River, Lake Itasca, using Canis Latina. He made up the somewhat nonsensical compound "veritas caput", which was supposed to mean 'true head' (i.e., river source), but actually would mean something like "truth (is) head" with both nouns in the nominative case. Then he disguised it by lopping off the first and last syllables, keeping the middle, which made it complete nonsense that sounded "Indian” (Schoolcraft was notorious for inventing "Indian"-sounding placenames in the Great Lakes and Upper Midwest, often from bad Latin; a number of counties in Michigan have similar name origin).
• The VST synthesizer Synplant is supposed to represent an "organic" mode of creating sounds — hence, randomly-generated patches are created with a randomly-generated name made out of random Latin words, to sound like plants. The one on the website is "Quorum Inedicabilis", both of which are real words but have little to do with the sound of a synthesizer.
• Scientists, when naming new species, will often name them after famous scientists or political figures, though instead of "us," they often add "-i" (for the genitive case) instead. This gets really silly when the person being honored is named "Ishii".
  • An example that makes Aussies' skin crawl - a species of land snail now known by the scientific name Crikey steveirwini.
    • Irwin also has a turtle named after him, Elseya irwini.
  • Strigiphilus garylarsoni, a biting louse named for the cartoonist of The Far Side, is only one example.
  • Larson also got another honor, but not in a species' name. See the Thagomizer on That Other Wiki.
  • Terry Pratchett has an extinct species of turtle (what else?) (Psephophorus terrypratchetti) named after him, and kept a fossil of it on his desk.
  • Gingoites nannyoggiae, (at least, as reported by the Art of Discworld), the scientific name of a particular Mesozoic plant.
  • Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits has the Masiakasaurus knopfleri named after him (prompting many jokes about being an aging rock dinosaur).
  • At first, Jurassic Park's movie looked a bit odd to palaeontologists, as the "velociraptors" were far too large (actual members of the genus Velociraptor were about the same size as chickens and turkeys). Then along came a discovery of a raptor-family dinosaur in Utah, every bit as big as the raptors in the movie and even bigger. It was dubbed Utahraptor spielbergi. Technically, the animal is now called Utahraptor ostrommaysorum. Another scientist, however, named a species of pterosaur (flying reptiles related to the dinosaurs) of the genus Coloborhynchus, "Coloborhynchus spielbergi", although its validity as a separate species of Coloborhynchus is currently under debate.
  • John Cleese has a lemur named after him. As far as cuteness goes, he wins.
  • Archeologists excavating a Mayan artifact site found a pictographic collection containing a carving of a very large, stylized snake; which they unofficially named "montypythonidies".
  • On hearing about the newly discovered spider Myrmekiaphila neilyoungi, Stephen Colbert demanded that he get an animal, too. The biologist in question duly named Aptostichus stephencolberti.
  • Musician Sting has an Amazonian tree frog named after him—Dendropsophus stingi.
  • And then there's Calponia harrisonfordi, which is a primitive spider.
  • A species of mushroom has been named Spongiforma squarepantsii in homage to Spongebob Squarepants.
  • There is a genus of dinosaur known as Gojirasaurus. Yes, named after that Gojira.
  • Same goes for Dracorex hogwartsia (which has been suggested in recent years to be just a juvenile Pachycephalosaurus), whose name roughly means "Dragon King of Hogwarts."
  • One nudibranch or sea slug was named Tritonia khaleesi, later renamed to Marianina khaleesi, in homage to—you guessed it—Daenerys Targaryen, of Game of Thrones, who is titled "Khaleesi" (among famously many, many other titles). This is because said nudibranch resembled her platinum-blonde hair.
  • Vampyroteuthis infernalis(Infernal Vampire Squid)
  • Aerodactylus scolopacipeps, formerly considered a species of Pterodactylus, is now a Pokémon.
  • A whole genus of spiders has been named after Predator (as the researchers found their chelicerae similar to the mandibles in the alien's face), with the specific names homaging the film's cast, crew and setting - i.e. Predatoroonops schwarzeneggeri.
• There is an entire website devoted to proving that scientists have a sense of humor. Among others:
  • The fossil fly Carmenelectra shechisme (pronounced "she-kiss-me")
  • The three species of spider once thought to be members of the genus Nops, reclassified as Notnops, Taintnops, and Tisentnops
  • Another fly called Phthiria relativitae (the "ph" is silent)
  • And several species of fungus beetle called Gelae baen, Gelae belae, Gelae donut, Gelae fish, and Gelae rol
• Elements get "ium". A number of naturally-occurring elements, plus all of the transuranic elements—elements with atomic numbers higher than uranium's 92, which are mostly synthesized in laboratories—fit this: einsteinium, californium, berkelium, curium, ununquadium, Unobtainium... the list goes on. Most famously, two different groups of scientists synthesized elements 93 and 94 independently, and both independently came up with the names "neptunium" and "plutonium" (to follow element 92, uranium, as Pluto was the ninth planet at the time).
  • 19th-century British chemist Humphry Davy settled first on "alumium," then on "aluminum," for the element he was trying to isolate. The Other Wiki quotes the Quarterly Review as being the first to insist on calling it aluminium, "in preference to aluminum, which has a less classical sound." But "aluminum" had already taken off in some circles, and today it keeps us Separated by a Common Language. The spelling "aluminium" was made standard by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (which is the international body for, well, chemistry) in exchange for accepting the American spelling "sulfur" as opposed to the British "sulphur".
  • On The Other Wiki, the argument over whether "aluminum" or "aluminium" is correct has spawned more hate-filled diatribes and edit wars than even the George W. Bush page. Word has it that even bringing it up in any online conversation anywhere will cause secret cabals of incensed editors to use reverse DNS methods to find out where you live, hunt you down and3w587fuN^NO&*IULYBvilu£%b6viaby5i+++NO CARRIER+++
  • Parodied in the alternate ending of Tom Lehrer's "The Elements":
  Lawrencium and Hahnium and lastly Rutherfordium
  If there are any others, I'm afraid I haven't heardium!
• Various current brands of natural yoghurt contain bacterial cultures with "marketing names" such as Bifidus Digestivum, Bifidus Activo or Digestivum Essensis. This can also get a bit silly.
• In centuries past, when Latin was the language of scholarship, it was common for scholars and scientists to "Latinize" their names, adopting either translations or suffixes. This practise was spoofed by Norwegian 1700s author Ludvig Holberg, who invented a character called Rasmus Berg (meaning Hill), who went off and got educated, and returned calling himself "Erasmus Montanus".
  • Charles Lutwidge Dodgson translated his first two names into Latin to get Carolus Lodovicus. He swapped the order of the names and re-Anglicized them to get his pen name: Lewis Carroll.
  • Jean Cauvin's last name was Latinized to Calvinus (despite being a Francozation of Calvus) before being Anglicized to Calvin.
  • Mikołaj Kopernik penning his name as Nicolaus Copernicus is another example, although he himself seemed to use many different variations in official documents.
  • René Descartes Latinized his name as Renatus Cartesius. Hence the term "Cartesian" for anything to do with him.
  • Carl von Linné, creator of the binominal nomenclature system and author of Systema Naturae, was born Carl Linnaeus, and usually signed his correspondence with Carolus Linnaeus. His father (a priest) Latinized his surname during his student days.
  • Christopher Columbus' name was a Latin/Greek-ification of Cristoforo Colombo. Same for Americus Vespucius (Amerigo Vespucci).
  • The Finnish family Gadolin, originally Isola. The stem father Jakob Isola first added Latin suffix -in on his name, becoming Isolin. Finnish iso means "big", so he Hellenified his name into Megalin. That wasn't good enough, so he Hebraized his name into Gadolin (Hebrew gadol = big). The element gadolinium has been named after Finnish chemist Johan Gadolin, a member of the family.
• Many Dutch aristocrats also adopted dog Latin or Greek surnames in the 16th and 17th centuries. One such name that has survived to modern times is Petraeus.
• Lorem Ipsum was originally actual Latin, but the present form has bits removed, in order to create a homogeneous-looking text with as little actual content as possible. This is so typesetters can concentrate on the layout of the text without being distracted by the meaning.
• Nil Illegitimi Carborundum, and many of its other variants, crop up in fiction from time to time; but the phrase dates back to the real World War II. This is somewhat annoying since the actual Latin for a similar expression would be Noli nothi permittere te terere, which is actually kind of catchy (particularly if you try saying it with a vaguely Italian accent).
  • or another meaningless doggerel known to generations of schoolboys, which HAS a Latin meaning completely different from its quasi-phonetic one: "Caesar ad sum iam forte, Brutus ad arat; Caesar sic in omnibus, Brutus sic in at". In "proper" Latin, this would translate, approximately, as the doggerel "I had chance to Caesar, Brutus the plows, so all Caesar, Brutus is at the" If, however, you read it out as British English, with the long E being English long E, etc., you'd get " Caesar 'ad some jam for tea, Brutus 'ad a rat. Caesar sick in omnibus, Brutus sick in 'at."
• Intel processors: "Pentium" is half Greek-ish ("Penta" = five) and half Latin-ish ("-ium"). "Celeron" is the opposite ("Celer" = fast in Latin, "-on" is a Greek-ish suffix) It became a joke among computer geeks that the "Celer" actually refers to celery, as in "light"/"stripped down", since it's often outperformed by its more powerful sibling, the Pentium series of CPUs.
• Fun to be had in the Netherlands. "Fallus Agraricus" is used to describe someone of being a 'Boerenlul' (Lit.: Farmer's Dick). Loose translation: a stupid dick.
  • In German, there is the variant "Penis Rusticus", which, yes, is also supposed to mean "farmer's dick".
    • Actually means Country Dick. Or Dick and Adjoining Farm.
• A common phrase that Latin scholars will hear from many non-Latin scholars is "Semper ubi sub ubi", which is gibberish when translated directly. The English translation is "Always where under where", but obviously sounds like "Always wear underwear." However, to many a Latin lover, this gets really old after awhile.
• For some reason, Russian schoolchildren memorize "Fortuna non phallus, manus non receptum" and "Per anum astrae non opticum". And "Lingua Latina non penis canina". The supposed translations are "Good luck is not a penis, you cannot hold on to it with your hand", "Stars are not visible through an asshole" and "Latin language is not a (thing of low importance) dog's penis".
  • The last one is technically correct^note Except for the dropped copula, but that's acceptable in Vulgar Latin, but "penis" is a surprisingly non-obscene word in Latin, not to mention that it can mean a lot of other things as well, so the phrase falls somewhat short of its intended meaning. For it to be true to its intent it should be "verpa canina", which indeed means "dog's dick".
• A similar Slovak/Czech phrase I have heard a couple times is Veni,Vidi,Vprdeli (the last originating from "v prdeli" - a common vulgar phrase meaning "in the arse"), supposedly meaning "I came, I saw, I swore."
• The South African legal term of "crimen injuria": what it's intended to mean is "crime of unlawful damage [to dignity]," i.e., criminal racism, but "injuria" is nominative, and "crimen" means "charge," not "crime." Translated faithfully, it could only mean "unlawful damage to a criminal charge."
• In the history of the Modern Greek language, there was a period called Katharevousa, which sought to purify the language of non-Greek influences and to adequately hellenize foreign place names. However, this was done in a rather haphazard manner, sometimes in ignorance of the actual Greek names that places already had. One of simplest ways to adapt place names was to calque Latin script spellings to Greek letters (actual letter pronunciation differences be damned), and add the feminine suffix -η (-i), or to change a feminine-looking -a to -η. Barcelona, Spain was rehellenized as Βαρκελώνη (Varkeloni), in ignorance that the classical language already had a name for this — Βαρκινών (Barkinōn). It could get rather silly with place names of much more recent origin; Boston became Βοστώνη (Vostoni), Frankfurt became Φραγκφούρτη (Fragkfourti), etc. Katharevousa Greek ceased being an official language anywhere by 1982, and now the more usual practice is to adapt foreign names phonetically in pronunciation and spelling, such as Tόκυο for Tokyo. Meanwhile, many naturally-evolved Greek words for (now-)foreign place names are kept, such as Ἀγκυρα (Agkyra) for Ankara, Turkey, which was Ankūra in classical times.
• A somewhat controversial youth ministry called Honor Academy (defunct since 2015) chose as its motto "Semper Honorablus, which supposedly means "Always Honorable," but is incorrect.
• A "quad bike" is a vehicle with four wheels and a mass of less than 550 kg (in UK law). It's really a misnomer, as the word "bike" comes from "bicycle", meaning (roughly) "two wheeled". A quad bike therefore should logically have eight wheels. A better but rarely-used alternative name is "quadricycle", along the same lines as "tricycle".
• Even the word "automobile" is a bastard child of Latin and Greek. Sticking to one language at a time would have produced either "ipsemobile" or "autokineton". (It is actually "avtokinito" in Modern Greek.)
  • Likewise, "television". Either "ultravisio" or "teleorasis" (which is, in fact, what it is called in Modern Greek). Compare German Fernsehen, far-seeing.
• Likewise, Lactobacillus acidophilus, another Latin-Greek bastardization. for a bacterium that thrives in sour (acidic) environment. The correct name would be acidoamicus or oxyphilus.
• "Tona ludatus vis saus megatus" is a fake-Latin respelling of a Hungarian phrase which would be more correctly written, "Tón a lúd átúsz', visszaúsz' meg átúsz'." The translation is: "The goose swims across the pond, swims back and swims across."
• A common joke among German students of Latin: SITVS VI LATE IN ISSES AB ERNIT. When read aloud and changing the placement of spaces a bit it sounds like the German sentence for “Looks like Latin, but it isn't". Of course, for someone who knowns only Latin but no German it's just complete gibberish.
  • The English versions are a post with the sign TOTI EMUL ESTO (To tie mules to) and/or an archaeological relic with the phrase ITI SAPIS SPOTANDA BIGO NE (It is a pisspot and a big one).
  • The pisspot joke exists also in German and is located in Cologne (Köln). Another kids joke is the one with the "vir ignis" (fireman) who fell from the firetruck and swore "STUDIUM FUGA MEUM IMPEDIRE!" ^note (worldly: Eifer Flucht mein hindern = phonetically: Damn, my ass!)
  • The pisspot joke also exists in Flemish Dutch, as "TIS NEPIS POTENTIS NEGROTE", which, in Flemish, would become "'t is ne pispot en 't is ne grote". Bonus points for the "potentis" for making it look genuine. The translation is identical to the English version. Variations starting with "DITIS" ("this is") and "DATIS" ("that is") exist as well, and the "negrote" is sometimes split into "negro te" to gain yet another genuine Latin word.
• Creationist and all-round loon Ray Comfort has sometimes claimed that the origin of the word "science" "comes from the Latin word 'scientificus'". It actually comes from the present participle of the word "scire", "sciens", which can be translated as "knowing".
• George W. Bush dubbed the user community of the iPod as "podosphere". Too bad that word had already a meaning in Greek. Hint: podos = foot, sphaira = three-dimensional symmetrically round object...
• During the discussions about the formal title of the new German emperor in 1871 — the main options were "German Emperor", "Emperor of Germany", and "Emperor of the Germans" — Otto von Bismarck said: "Nescio quid mihi magis farcimentum esset", meaning "I don't know about what I would care less." The sentence is grammatically correct, but contains a literal translation of the German idiom "das ist mir Wurst" ("that's sausage to me"), which means "it's all the same to me" or "I don't care".
• The acronym DOS for Keith Raniere's NXIVM sex-slave unit stood for "Dominus Obsequious Sororium," supposed to mean "master over the slave women" at a sub-Hogwarts level of Dog Latin. In real Latin that would be magister super servas. "NXIVM" itself is a pseudo-Latin example of this trope.
• If you want see a real fight, ask what the plural of 'octopus' is? Is it octopuses (English), octopi (Latin), or octopodes (Greek)? And on a similar note for another animal, is it platypuses, platypi, or platypodes?
• One well-known joke among French students of Latin is to translate "Bella matribus detestata" (the war that mothers hate) as "belle-mère detestée" (hated mother-in-law).

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