Friday Morning Latin Lesson: XXXVI

Defici epicus, my friends![1] Last Friday, as Elliot reminded us, was the 32nd anniversary of the day Elvis died. Instead of showing you what a dirty old man Ovid was, I should have been talking about the death of the King of Rock 'n Roll. That, my friends, is a failure of an epic proportion.

The reason this is important to me isn't so much because of the King himself. No, my love for Elvis comes from an Elvis Impersonator. Oh, no, wait. An Elvis Tribute Artist, and arguably one of the finest in all the land. His name is Keith Henderson, and he's a propane man by day and an Elvis tribute artist in the evenings and weekends. I say "the best" because he has won awards declaring him as such.

When I first moved down to North Carolina, I tried to tutor chemistry as much as possible in order to help pay the bills and offset the meager restitution offered by the biotech I worked for. My very first job was tutoring this lovely young lady in high school chemistry, and so every Tuesday night I'd head down to her house and we'd work through some problems and worksheets and such and that would be it. I, of course, met her parents and her dogs, and then one night I was in the kitchen and noticed a room that was filled with Elvis memorabilia. And then, one night, Keith walked through carrying a blue jumpsuit with rhinestones sewn onto it, and it was then that I knew what was going on.

And I loved it. This was one of the greatest jobs I ever had. I got to hang out with a lovely family for an hour a week, talk chemistry, and one of the members of the household was a Elvis tribute artist. What wasn't to love? So, when her brother (who was away at college) needed help with college-level organic chemistry the following summer, I jumped at the opportunity to help him, too. I did such a good job helping them both that I was given some tickets to one of Keith's shows. My wife and I were so excited to go. And we went. People, I even forsook the second half of the Notre Dame/Michigan game that year (which Notre Dame won, thankyouverymuch) to see this.

To say I loved it is an understatement. It was hilariously good fun, mostly because Keith does a great job and pours a lot of energy into the role, but also because he doesn't take himself too seriously, which just helps with the fun. We've actually seen him twice. We're kind of Keith Henderson groupies. And that's not something I am ashamed to admit.

So, if ever you get a chance to see Keith Henderson and his band the Illusions, do it. If for nothing more than the chance to say you did. And, if you get to meet him after the show, tell him I sent you. Also, tell him this:

Credo Elvem vivere!
Pronounced: "Cray-doh El-waim wee-ware-aye!"

Translation in the hovertext. Also, THAT'S the blue jumpsuit! And his daughter that I tutored is on the right side of the picture.

The reason I like this little Latin phrase is because it's simple and teaches quite a bit about not only the language but also the grammar. So, I'll do a quick dissection here:

Credo is the first principal part of of the verb credere, which means "to believe (that)". It's the first person singular form and translates as "I believe," and it is from where we derive words such as "creed", "credence" and "credit."

Elvem is a Latinized form of the name Elvis, and since it ends in -is it takes what is called the "third declension". Declensions are ways of changing the ending to nouns depending on how they're used in the sentence, i.e. subject, direct object, object of a preposition, etc. The -em ending is in the accusative case because it is the subject of the indirect statement.

vivere is the verb "to live", and a word-for-word translation would be "I believe Elvis to be living", which is kind of...meh...so cleaning up the translation leaves us with "I believe that Elvis lives".

And there you have it: an actual Latin lesson. Have a good weekend, everyone.

[1] "I have failed epically!"