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Dan Conway

@magisterconway.bsky.social
509 followers 207 following 655 posts

Latin/French/former IB/reluctant AP teacher. Sometimes tweets in Latin. Vergil fanboy. he/him

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Reposted by Dan Conway
Ben Nagy @rantyben.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
It's been a long time, I shouldn't have left you without a Latin verse rant to scroll through... Last couple of days I have been digging a bit more deeply into Ovid's style of ELISION. 🧵
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
This person’s in for a surprise when they read the Aeneid
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Student: "O magister, what's the difference between 'hosce' and 'hos'? How do you know when to use 'hosce'?" Quintilian: "Vibes, bro. Vibes"
"Neminem vestrum ignorare arbitror, iudices, hunc per hosce dies sermonem vulgi atque hanc opinionem populi Romani fuisse". CXIX. cur "hosce" potius quam "hos"? Neque enim erat asperum. Rationem fortasse non reddam, sentiam esse melius.Consider the following example: neminem vestrum ignorare abritror, iudices, hoc per hosce dies sermonem vulgi atque hanc opinionem populi Romani fuisse.⁠ Why is hosce preferable to hos, although the latter presents no harshness? I am not sure that I can give the reason, but none the less I feel that hosce is better.
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
“Urbi et Orly” is an A+++ pun
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Opened up one of my kid’s earth science activity kits, and got an AP Latin jumpscare on page 1 lol
1. A VOLCANO ERUPTS
VESUVIUS, 79 A.D.
What is it really like when a volcano erupts?
It's like this:
On August 24, my mother pointed out a cloud of very unusual size and appear-ance. We couldn't tell just where it was coming from, but later we found that it came from Mount Vesuvius. The best way I can describe it is to say that it looked like a pine tree—it had a trunk shooting up to a great height, and at the top it spread out into several branches. One minute it was white. The next minute it was dark and blotchy, as if it had carried up earth or cinders.
My uncle, true scientist that he was, thought it was worth getting a closer look. He
said I could go with him, but I told him I had homework to do.
After my uncle left, I spent the rest of the day studying. But that night cinders started falling, growing thicker and hotter. Then came stones that were blackened,
and cracked by fire. Mount Vesuvius was blazing in several places, with
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
I’m sorry but “out of the 59 top cities and capitals” is so funny to me And I think I figured out where they pulled that number out of
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Polyptoton
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
Yeah, you've made a typo in a group chat, but have you published a Latin work with grammatical errors so severe that people wrote epigrams about you and kept calling you "Dr. Paginibus"?
he also edited Beza, and published a Latin preface so full of bad Latin, that he deemed it expedient to call in those copies that had been circulated in the University, that the work might be re-issued with an amended preface. A friend of mine was so much delighted with its blunders that he refused to part with his copy, saying that he considered it a literary curiosity, which in a few years would become extremely valuable. I could at one time quote a number of memorable expressions, but I can now only remember his using the word Paginibus, which actually appeared in several copies of the amended preface.A few years before, Kipling had published, at great expense to the University, a facsimile of Beza's manuscript of the New Testament,' in the Preface to which he had committed some mistakes in Latin which were not easily forgotten by Cambridge and were brought up by Frend at the trial. As a result of an unfortunate dative or ablative form the deputy professor won the nickname of Dr Paginibus, and Porson (if he was the author) sent to The Morning Chronicle an epigram in the manner of the Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum, in which the words italicised are mistakes actually made by Kipling:
Paginibus nostris dicitis mihi menda quod insunt:
At non in recto vos puto esse, viri.
Nam primum: iurat, cetera ut testimonia omitto Milnerus quod sum doctus ego et sapiens.
Classicus haud es, aunt. Quid si non sum? in sacrosancta Non ullo tergum verto theologia.?
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Just saw a post on here by an Ohio State football fan apologizing in advance for posting about “sportsball” while having replies disabled. I’m begging people to just be normal about sports on Bluesky
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
I can't be the only one that thought "enallage" and "hypallage" were pronounced like "collage," right?... (They actually rhyme with "analogy")
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
My favorite Pittsburgh dialect story is when we were at my grandmas house and she asked if we wanted to see the new [tʰaːɫz] she'd gotten for the bathroom. Half the room thought she said “tiles,” the others heard “towels”
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Three rivers? In this economy?
View of Pittsburgh and its three rivers
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Struck gold at a used bookstore in Columbus, Georgia: a book of overhead projector transparencies and mimeograph pages about Ancient Rome
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Pliny the Elder giving advice about table linens (19.4):
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
I’d never seen this clip of Tim Curry as the Pirate King in “Penzance,” and it’s delightful. It’s even got a silly cadenza! youtu.be/jWzqcele1tY?...
youtu.be
Tim Curry as The Pirate King - 'The Pirates of Penzance -1982 - Royal Variety Performance
YouTube video by Tim Curry
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
For a platform that hates AI so much, there sure are a lot of obviously generated pics/video that do numbers on Bluesky
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Reposted by Dan Conway
Duille @duille.com · 28/08/2026
On this day in 1833 The British Slavery Abolition Act was passed freeing more than 800,000 enslaved people across the British Empire. Abolition Teapot. Josiah Wedgewood. c.1770. Image: BMAG. Wedgwood was a lifelong anti-slavery activist.
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 29/08/2026
It’s not just the South: I was in speech therapy as a kid for having trouble with /ɹ/ and other consonants, and while they were in there they sanded down most of my Pittsburgh accent. I remember specifically them telling me not to pronounce “out” as [aːt]. It’s unfortunate
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
High school Latin lexicon, 2026 fōrmaxximātor, fōrmaxximātōris (m.) – looksmaxxer
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Reposted by Dan Conway
John Nurick @jmnurick.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Thank you for the rare opportunity to cite A.D. Godley's 'Motor Bus':
What is this that roareth thus?
Can it be a Motor Bus?
Yes, the smell and hideous hum
Indicat Motorem Bum!
Implet in the Corn and High
Terror me Motoris Bi:
Bo Motori clamitabo
Ne Motore caedar a Bo--
Dative be or Ablative
So thou only let us live:
Whither shall thy victims flee?
Spare us, spare us, Motor Be!
Thus I sang; and still and still anigh
Came in hordes Motores Bi,
Et complebat omne forum
Copia Motorum Borum.
How shall wretches live like us
Cincti Bis Motoribus?
Domine, defende nos
Contra hos Motores Bos.
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Early Modern pronunciation of Latin in England was... really something, wasn't it
They are Fools that Reason thus,
Communis Error facit Jus [kə-
ˈmju:-nɪs ˈer-ə ˈfeɪ-sɪt ʤᴧs].
(Robert Dixon, Canidia, or the Witches (1683), XVI.718–19)
To what Absurdities will you hale us?
Semel malus semper præsumitur esse malus
[ˈsi:-məlˈmeɪ-ləs ˈsem-pə prɪ-
ˈsᴧm-ɪ-tɜ:
ˈes-i:ˈmeɪ-ləs].

Culpam in Jovem rejicias [ˈcᴧl-pəm ɪn ˈʤəʊ-vəm rə-ˈʤɪʃ-əs],
Say’twas the Gods, not you that were vicious.
(ibid. XVI.1073–4)
To prove that Peers should never vary,
Nor Leges Anglice mutari [ˈli:-ʤi:zˈæɳglɪ-si mju:-ˈteə-ri]35
.
(Thomas Tickell, For England’s Injured Church and Law (1730), lines 79–10)
Watches, when first invented– seek’em,
In brother Trusler’s Vade Mecum[ˈveɪ-di:ˈmi:-kəm].
(William Mason, King Stephen’s Watch. A Tale (1782), lines 13–14)
Your subtile spirits, or your mighty,
Your aqua fortis, aqua vitae [ˈæk-wə ˈfɔ:-tɪs, ˈæk-wə ˈvaɪ-ti:].
(Thomas Holcroft, Human Happiness, or the Sceptic (1783), I.151–2)
With nonsense in verse can elate and delight’em,
And gives them variety ad infinitum [æd ˌɪn-fɪ-
ˈnaɪ-təm].
(Anthony Pasquin, The Children of Thepsis (1789), Part II.795–6)But peace to her– her Emperor and Diet,
Though now transferred to Buonapartè’s ‘fiat’ [ˈfaɪ-ət].
(Byron, The Waltz: An Apostrophic Hymn (1813), lines 55–6)
But that, indeed, was hopeless as can be,
Quite a poetic felony‘de se’[di: si:].
(Byron, The Vision of Judgement (1822), XCIV.751–2)
And had told all the party a great booming lie, he
Cook’d up, that‘the fête was postposed sine die’ [ˈsaɪ-ni:ˈdaɪ-i:].
(Thomas Ingoldsby, The Lay of St Cuthbert (1840), lines 74–5)
So unless you’re a dunce, You’ll see clearly, at once,
When you come to consider the facts of the case, he,
Of course never gave her his Vade in pace [ˈveɪ-di: ɪn ˈpeɪ-si:].
(Thomas Ingoldsby, The Lay of the Old Woman Clothed in Grey (1840), lines 263–5)
Your thoughts, opinions, freely state’em.
Then, here they follow seriatim [ˌsɪə-ri-ˈeɪ-tɪm].
(Robert Story, Reply to an Epistle from Mr. Gourley (1857), lines 31–2)
May thy hand be fierce as Ate’s [ˈeɪ-ti:z]
Fighting for our old Penates [pe-ˈneɪ-ti:z]
(Lady Wilde, The Old Man’s Blessing (1864), lines 13–14)
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Reposted by Dan Conway
Rhys Kaminski-Jones @rhyskamjones.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
Because I happened to see it out in the wild today, I am doing my bit of disciplinary penance If you were good and did your homework, and learned that no Classical authors called people in Ireland and Britain Celts - actually at least one did! We were wrong and are sorry, signed, Celtic Studies
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
‘CELTIC BRITAIN’ IN PRE‐ROMAN ARCHAEOLOGY, RECONSIDERED
For forty years archaeologists have avoided referring to pre-Roman Britain and its inhabitants as ‘Celtic’ on the grounds that contemporaries never described them as such. This is incorrect. The seco...
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Also, speaking of 18th-century Cambridge, this is very funny
Sometimes the moderator himself spoke dog-Latin. William
Farish of Magdalene, vicar of St Giles and Professor of Chemistry
but no classicist, reproved a poll man running into the Schools
without full academical dress: 'Domine opponentium tertie, non
habes quod debes. Ubi sunt tui .. . eh! eh! Anglice "bands"?' The
opponent replied, 'Domine moderator, sunt in meo ... Anglice
"pocket".'
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
Reading into 18th-century Cambridge, and it has a jargon of its own. If a student in 1783 earns a "first in mathematics," what does that mean exactly? On this list, who earned a "first in mathematics"? Just the top Wrangler? All the Wranglers? Everyone on all three lists?
List of Cambridge maths results from 1783. There is a list of "Wranglers," "Senior Optimes," and "Junior Optimes"
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
This has got to be the worst hexameter I’ve ever heard. Quintilian would have an aneurism
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
I often think about how ancient nursery rhymes, children's stories, etc. have been lost to us, and allusions to them in the literature, which in that time would have been obvious even to a child, are now totally obscure
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Mildly interesting: Pliny the Younger talks about how, a few days after the eruption of Vesuvius, the sun seemed dimmer and yellowish, like during an solar eclipse—and he had in fact seen an eclipse eight years before the eruption, when he was about 9 or 10 years old
Solar eclipse map labeled Hybrid, Saros 79, 0071 Mar 20. The path of the eclipse stretches from north Africa through Greece and into Ukraine and Russia. The entirety of the Roman Empire is in the range of the eclipse
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
A few years ago, when my kid was in a Frozen phase, I started a little project to make proctoring state testing less boring. Since then, I've worked on it when I couldn't watch or read anything (proctoring, long car drives, etc.) Now it's done, so here you go: "Let It Go" in Latin elegiac couplets
static.klipy.com
Elsa: Sparkling Ice Queen
ALT: Elsa: Sparkling Ice Queen
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
I was once looking something up in the OED and the most recent citation was from Notre Dame’s student newspaper in like 2010. I found the author on Twitter, he had no idea that he was featured in the definitive record of the English language
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
I went back to the old site to look at my Catullus 67 tweets, and wow, I was really posting through it, wasn’t I? In November 2020! Famously uneventful month
"To understand it, in the light of the comment upon it, is a real challenge (Copley, 1949)
"A poem that has prompted scholars to enormous efforts in the attempt to unravel its 'enigma"" (Richardson, 1967)
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Dan Co... @Magist... • Nov 12, 2020 S ...
"It is still a matter of controversy what the situation underlying Catullus 67 is"
(Macleod, 1983)
"Yet undeniable ambiguity as to certain crucial details makes the following lines most contentious among modern scholars"
(Forsyth, 1986)
贝企
Dan Co... @Magist... • Nov 12, 2020 S ...
"The details, as reported, are confusing and open to construction in several ways" (Skinner, 2003)
"There is so far no basis for consensus on some vital points for the understanding of this poem" (Kraggerud, 2020)The IB Latin committee choosing Catullus 67
Sue Sylvester meme:
I am going to select a poem that is so textually corrupt
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 05/08/2026
I GOT IT AND IT’S REALLY GOOD
Stephanie McCarter’s new Catullus translation, out now from Penguin Classics
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
I love these Italian nonna videos, they always teach me words with interesting etymologies Today it’s “melanzana” (eggplant), from Arabic بَاذِنْجَان (bāḏinjān), with influence from the Italian “mela” (apple) With the definite article (اَلْبَاذِنْجَان, al-bāḏinjān), it’s also is the source of “aubergine”
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Cato the Elder has entered the chat
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Who remembers that account that used to post bizarre 70’s cookbook pages? I miss them. Here’s a photo of a dinner party in 1972, where the punch bowl seems to be filled with the liquid from inside a green glowstick
A holiday party in 1972. On a table in the foreground are a number of hors d’œuvres including a cheese ball, and a festive centerpiece. Also, there is a punch bowl containing a bright neon green substance. A woman in pearls is ladling this green stuff into a glass. In the background, four people are sitting and chatting, each with a glass of the aforementioned beverage
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Reposted by Dan Conway
Eduardo García-Molina @egarcmol.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
I’ll wait for the BMCR review of the edited volume on the reception to the reviews of the reviews.
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
This is the correct take. Unfortunately books are one of the things on Bluesky that you’re supposed to express love for as performatively as possible
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
All right, I've got two hours and a cup of tea. May Apollo favor me as I prepare to slay the Python. I'll be liveposting the process here
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
OK, I'm doing it: I'm going to try to figure out how Python works again.
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Reposted by Dan Conway
Lauren Donovan Ginsberg @laurenginsberg.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
Myth peeps: in Lucan’s catalogue of the inverted world he describes the Moon as hostile to her brother & claiming right over day from him. I can find some parallels for Moon & Sun switching routs but not for Moon as antagonistic to her brother. Am I missing an obvious parallel? #AncientBluesky
fratri contraria Phoebe ibit et obliquum bigas agitare per orbem indignata diem poscet sibi
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 27/07/2026
If I see one more “Lettuce is unsafe, eat [unhealthy food] instead!” joke I’m going to lose my mind
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
Had a dream where a café in the next town over gave out free samples every morning of cocktails inspired by the Pro Caelio
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
One of the chapter book spinoffs has a scene where Elsa and Anna are consulting old census records, and I was fascinated by this window into Arendellian bureaucratic record-keeping practices
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
My productivity has totally been derailed by finding this big guy on my front porch. Can anyone identify it? Central Pennsylvania
Large beetle, dark reddish brown with a smooth exoskeleton
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
The options from my grocery run, ranked: Excellent: Frank San Pellegrino Frank LaCroix Good: Frank Pretzels Frank Candle Kinda weird: Frank Yogurt Frank Cough Drops Terrible: Frank Toilet Bowl Tablets Frank Hydrogen Peroxide So bad it’s good: Frank Baked Beans
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Hey @stoicquotes.bsky.social, quit unliking and re-liking the same post again, I know what you’re up to. So thirsty for followers… what would Seneca say? “You should set your mind, Lucilius, on rejecting the pleasure that comes from others’ praise of you” (EM 7.12).
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
This but unironically
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Omg it’s real
11. Love me love my dog. [Qui me amat, amat et canem meum. - 12th cent.: St Bernard, Fest. S. Mich., Ser. i § 3.] c. 1480: Early Miscell., 62 (Warton Cl.), He that lovythe me lovythe my hound. 1527: Tyndale, in Treatises, 84 (P.S.), We say also, He that loveth not my dog, loveth not me. 1583: Stubbes, Anat. of Abuses, 178
(N.Sh.S.). 1664: in Musarum Deliciae, etc., ii 77 (Hotten). 1714: Spectator, No. 579. 1826: Lamb, Pop. Fallacies, xiii. 1920: W. H. Mallock,
Memoirs, 42.3. Non sic minister ille sublimior cunctis, sed et humilior universis, sui semetipsum obtulit sacrili-cium laudis, qui Patri offerens animam suam, nobis ministrat usque hodie carnem suam. Hujus utique tanti ministri 
gratia nihil mirum, si dignanter nolis, imo et libenter angeli sancti ministrent. Ipsi enim amant nos, quia nos Christus amavit. Dicitur certe vulgari quodam proverbio: Qui me amal, amal et canem meam. Nos vero, o heati angeli, catelli su-mus Domini illins, quem tanto affectu diligitis; catelli, inquam, cupientes saturari de micis, que ca-dant de mensa dominorum nostrorun, qui estis vos.
Et hæc dixerim, fratres, ut ampliorem de catero er-ga beatos angelos filuciam babeatis, ac proinde familiarius in omni necessitate vestra corum invo-celis auxilia; s"d'el alignius in corum presentia conversari, et magis ac magis corum vobis conci-liare gratiam, captare benevolemiam, exorare cle-mentiam studeatis. Cujus rei gratia necessarium duco alias quoque charitati vesire exponere caesas, quie el ipse beatos angelos pro nostra infirmitate reddant sollicitos; absque sua sane ansielate, sed non alisque utilitate nostra; nee ad detrimentum feiicitatis sure, sed ad nostre salutis augmentum.
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Five favorite cities, no particular order. I’m not as well traveled as some of you folks but I’ve got a solid top 5 Prague NYC Lyon Naples Chicago Honorable mention to my hometown of Pittsburgh
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Dan Conway @magisterconway.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
New Italian word I learned from this: “tuorlo” (egg yolk), which is from Latin “torulus” (little bulge), from “torus” (bulge)
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