“Marty from Delaware” called in to Baseball this Morning the day after the Phillies clinched a trip to the World Series. Perhaps he was exhausted from watching an emotionally draining game or maybe he only has a 5th grade education or maybe he knew full well what he was saying. Regardless of the circumstances, with Marty’s grammatical slip, an “endearingly dopey” post-season slogan was born: “Why can’t us?”
Philadelphians have been swift to adopt the rallying cry, and the motto has spawned an entire line of merchandise in support of the Phightin’ Phils.
“Why can’t us?” are three little words that Jeff Kolakowski says summarize “the joy and the passion and the pain release that getting into the World Series brought.”
Penn’s motto Leges sine Moribus vana (I know, you already knew that) is neither endearing nor dopey — there’s no joy, a questionable quantity of passion and a decided lack of pain release. According the website of the University Archives and Records Center the phrase translates to “laws without morals are useless” (I know, you already knew that too…) but what exactly does that mean?
The Archives goes on to explain that the motto is taken from the writings of Horace — Roman lyric poet, read: Backstreet Boy. (Odes 3, 24, 35-36 if you’re wondering). What Horace really meant was “Of what avail are empty laws without (good) mores?” Oh, right, much better.
I’m not quite sure, but between an underwear fiend, a smattering of sexual scandal and alums like disgraced New York congressman Vito Fossella, we might need to reevaluate.
In 1755 the leges was dropped and apparently “sine Moribus vana” was translated by one trouble-making student to “loose women without morals.” Nobody got around to adding the leges back in until 1956 so Penn enjoyed 200 years of loose morals.
The motto’s fixed, but are we? Harvard’s got “truth,” Princeton one-upped them with “hope and truth,” Brown has “in God we hope,” Dartmouth’s is (my personal favorite) “a voice in the wilderness cries,” Cornell touts “any person can study,” Columbia went idealistic with “in your light we see the light,” Princeton opted for “under God’s power she flourishes.”
So Penn… “business in the ‘hood?”
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November 14th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Sorry Susan- small factual correction (and this is where my idiotic treasure trove of useless facts comes into play). 1. You missed the ‘e’ at the end of vanae.
2. Sine Moribus Vanae can indeed be translated as Loose Women Without Morals. This was, however, pointed out in 1898, and a horrified university establishment quickly changed the motto to ‘Literae sine Moribus vanae’, or ‘letters without morals are useless’. You can see this motto on many buildings on camus including the Quad, and Hayden Hall. In 1932, however, the university overhauled all aspects of the seal, crest and motto of the university. Literae Sine Moribue vanae was said to multilate Horace (which it does) and so, true to the original sayings of Horace, the motto was changed to its wonderful present day form, which I like very much indeed. I like to think it applies to everyone in a ‘only do things with good intentions and think seriously about the consequences of your actions’ sort of way. But that makes a crappy motto.
Wow, I’m SUCH a geek.