City Gent Accused Of Sending Lewd Latin Message

Dean Nicholas
By Dean Nicholas Last edited 172 months ago
City Gent Accused Of Sending Lewd Latin Message

The strange case of Mark Lowe, accused of plotting to murder a female employee, took a strange twist yesterday after a tribunal heard that the investment firm boss used a "vile Latin quotation" in an email. Responding to work experience girl Ariane Gordji's suggestion that he should "diligite inimicos vestros" (love your enemies), Lowe quoted the 1st century poet Catullus: "Irrumabo vos, et pedicabo vos" (which our family-friendly policy obliges us to render as: I will make whoopee in your mouth and your posterior). Surely this wasn't what Boris meant when he encouraged kids to learn Latin? Ms Gordji, not a fluent Latin linguist, was shocked when she Googled the translation; Lowe maintains it was a light-hearted joke and that, in its time, the line was considered a slice of agreeable badinage. Our adolescent Latin grammar lessons have helped prepare this phrase that Mr. Lowe might want to memorise in his own defence: "Ego sum inimicus proprius pessimus meus".

Last Updated 24 November 2009