"People called Vermonters they go the house." Okay, so that's both terrible Latin and a total rip-off of Life of Brian. But that's still not nearly as bad as the people on Facebook who hated the idea of a new Latin motto for Vermont: Stella quarta decima fulgeat "May the fourteenth star shine bright". The Vermont Political Observer has more of the story.
Just a bit more of the backstory and a few of the Facebook comments.
Last spring, Senate Minority Leader Joe Benning got a letter from an eighth-grader at The Riverside School in Lyndonville. She was studying Latin, and wanted Senator Joe to introduce a bill to give Vermont a Latin motto.....It was too late in last year’s session to launch the idea, but Benning introduced it this month. Senate Bill 2 would not affect “Freedom and Unity” at all; it would simply establish the Latin motto as a separate thing.
And now, the stupid, it burns.
Dorothy Lynn Lepisto: “I thought Vermont was American not Latin? Does any Latin places have American mottos?”
Norman Flanders: “What next Arab motto??”
Kevin P. Hahn: “How about ‘go back south of the boarder'”
Richard Mason: “We are AMERICANS, not latins, why not come up with a Vermont motto that is actually from us”
Judy Lamoureux: “Throw him out of the country tell him to take obama with him!”
Phil Salzano: “My question is, are we Latin, or are we Vermonters? Alright then, English it is…..”
Lori Olds: “I thought this was USA why are they trying to make Americans aliens”
Chris Ferro: “That’s a BIG NO, if you live in the United State YOU need to learn ENGLISH!!”
Where's John Cleese when we need him?