Talk:The Motor Bus

Question on wording
Is it not "An thou only let us live"? This is the version given in "The Faber Book of Comic and Curious Verse", and at. Does anyone have a definitive text? 78.105.161.182 (talk) 22:34, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

This made me curious, so I looked up a scan of the original Reliquary print on Google Books. It turns out that the wording given here is correct; it is "So thou only let us live". Khim1 (talk) 19:56, 23 June 2014 (UTC)

Explanation ???
Where can I find (or can somebody add) a line-by-line translation/explanation of the poem? Just translating the latin words and explaining the declensions of "motor" and "bus" and what case they are in in each line? I know little Latin and I want to be able to fully appreciate the humour! :) --AndreRD (talk) 16:08, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry, I was able to work it out with and. Maybe I'll write up an explanation myself now. --AndreRD (talk) 16:40, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Good idea - I have done this. Ninquelosse (talk) 17:11, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Macaronic?
The Huxley piece is not really a macaronic, is it? Some of the Latin may be idiosyncratic (I don't, for example, think I've ever seen liqueo as transitive elsewhere), but apart from the term Mars-Bar it can all be read as Latin.

Mjhrynick (talk) 22:57, 28 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I agree. If that's macaronic, then we English-speakers are code-switching when we talk about "tacos" or "sushi".

66.87.2.46 (talk) 22:58, 11 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I would have agreed, and was about to complain here, but then I read Macaronic language and am therefore changing it to "macaronic Latin". GeorgeTSLC (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:57, 26 August 2012 (UTC)