A lot of people ask me where I got the name of my company, or what is the translation of the tagline above (and below).

“O civile si ergo! Fortibus es in aro. O nobili demis trux. Watis inem? Causand dux.”
(with many variations, including “fortibus es in ero.”)

It’s actually an example of Dog Latin.  Dog Latin is when you write fake Latin that has a double entendre to the reader or hearer.  It’s the equivalent of your pretending to speak Spanish by putting the letter O at the end of every English word.  So when Harry Potter wants the lantern to ignite, he doesn’t just say “fiat lux (let there be light).”  Instead, the author lined up a bunch of related phrases, and then made them pretty–she turned the Latin into Latinate, or Dog Latin; from “fiat lux” to “fiat lumen (let there be brightness)” to “Lumos!”  This not only makes the phrase pretty, but often adds a double meaning to the audience.  So when Harry Potter wanted the monster to appear funny to his friends, he didn’t say exactly what Caesar would have said–no, he said “Riddikulus!”, which as a word is not only Latinate but has such a strong cognate that English audiences who don’t know Latin still think it’s a cool world.  (Plus of course it’s pretty looking/sounding, and makes the few who catch both meanings feel smart!)

Okay, so now for the punchline:

“O sibili si ergo! Fortibus es in aro. O nobili demis trux. Watis inem? Causand dux.”

Oh, see, Billy!  See her go!  Forty buses in a row!  Oh, no, Billy!  Them is trucks!  What is in them?  Cows and ducks!”

Now don’t you feel stupid?!  Well, you won’t once you make all your friends look stupider by passing it out to them!  And eventually you’ll all drown your embarassment in a good old fashioned proud-geek tee shirt, and drown that embarassment in a big salary a few years down the road, with help of your Latin tutor (who also went to MBA school.)

Before we close up, here’s some more Dog Latin you see around town.  Have fun with each, and link ‘em back to this page!

• Draco Malfoy (wrongdoing dragon, plus a third reference to Draco, the Hammurabi-ish Lawgiver)
• Voldemort (death-lover)
• Naughtius Maximus (from Monty Python)
• Venom (from Spider Man)
• Accelerati Incredibus (from Looney Tunes)
• Carnivorous Vulgaris (from Looney Tunes)
• Semper ubi sububi
• Computator (or any other NeoLatin, from when we need words that don’t exist)
• Carpe __________ (anything other than “diem”)
• Cogito ergo__________ (anything other than “sum”)
• Reductio ad Hitlerum (a logical device you hear constantly, where someone says “you believe ________, well so did Hitler/Saddam/Osama/etc. [therefore your belief must be inherently wrong]).
• Lorem ipsum (all “greeking”, including “foo music” or “fortibus es” or “o sibili si ergo”.  Feel free to use any of them.)
• Brutus ad sum iam forte, Caesar aderat, Brutus sic in omnibus, Caesar sic in at

Please leave more examples in the comments box below as you see them, and you will!