Meta Description: Join Dr. Jeff Winkle and Dr. David Noe in Ad Navseam Episode 169 as they broadcast from the Novum Vomitorium. Discover the “Hamiltonian System” of 19th-century language learning, the debate over interlinear translations, and why reading the Latin language is like eating a watermelon down to the rind. Plus, the truth about “ham stir fry” and immortal cheese.
Introduction: New Digs, Bad Puns, and Nuttiness
Welcome back, classical gourmands, to Episode 169 of the Ad Navseam Podcast! The hosts have officially packed their bags and relocated to a brand-new studio. Having previously recorded at Vomitorium East (by Keller Lake), Vomitorium West, and Vomitorium South, Dr. Jeff Winkle and Dr. David Noe are now broadcasting from what they are affectionately dubbing the Novum Vomitorium (or perhaps Vomitorium Central). This perambulatory podcast continues its migratory journey, with Dr. Noe joking that their ultimate goal is to eventually record from the back of a moving camel.
They invite listeners to use the “You Spew Too” feedback feature on their website to let them know if the acoustics or the general “vibe” (to use the modern parlance of the youth) of the new studio are to their liking.
Dr. Winkle is feeling great, fresh off a relaxing Christmas break. A self-proclaimed “creature of routine,” he is thrilled to be back in the pedagogical saddle, happily riding herd on his undergrads in the classroom.
Dr. Noe, on the other hand, has been using his free time to concoct a series of highly questionable dad jokes and shower thoughts. He shares three recent linguistic epiphanies:
- The Publishing House: If anyone wants to start a sports-centric publishing company, Dave has the perfect, uncopyrighted name: “The Full Court Press” (just don’t publish any books on swimming).
- The Grating Conqueror: When Alexander of Macedon first started insisting people call him “Alexander the Great,” didn’t that grate on his closest friends? Dr. Winkle agrees, imagining Alexander’s generals rolling their eyes in Babylon and whispering about “Alexander the Average”.
- The Culinary Impossibility: Dr. Noe points out that the phrase “ham stir fry” is fundamentally broken. Since “ham” belongs to the rodent family (hamsters), the phrase implies you are frying a household pet. It must be a “stir fry with ham” to avoid terrifying culinary implications.
These antics recently earned the podcast a brilliant piece of listener feedback, where a fan praised the show’s delightful “nuttiness”. While some critics demand they cut the banter, the hosts double down: they are going to produce the podcast the way they like it, nuttiness included.
The Main Event: The Malaise of Language Education
Today’s deep dive centers around a 2008 article by Ernest Blum discussing the “Hamiltonian System” of language learning, developed in the early 19th century by an obscure, peripatetic businessman named James Hamilton.
Blum’s article opens with a bold claim: there is a profound sense of malaise, if not outright crisis, regarding the state of foreign language education. Students invest years of time and effort, yet they often graduate unable to actually apply or read the language. Dr. Winkle agrees, noting a paradox in modern academia: universities push students to become “global citizens,” but simultaneously structure language requirements so that students start too late and quit after just two years, ensuring they never achieve mastery.
This frustration is not new. In 1692, the philosopher John Locke complained that it was absurd for a child to be “chained to the oar” for seven to ten years just to acquire a classical language.
But in the age of AI, is learning a language even necessary? Dr. Noe brings up modern Bluetooth earbuds that can translate spoken Spanish or French into English in real-time. If your only goal is to order a croissant in Paris, AI has you covered. But, as the hosts point out, language is not math. There is rarely a clean one-to-one correspondence between words. As the famous Italian phrase goes, Traduttore, traditore (the translator is a traitor). AI translations are clunky and lack art. If your goal is to read the majestic poetry of Vergil or the soaring rhetoric of Cicero in the original Latin language, you simply cannot rely on a machine.
The Hamiltonian System: Interlinear Translations
The major roadblock in learning ancient languages is the “vocabulary gap.” Students spend so much time flipping through dictionaries that they lose the narrative thread. Both hosts vividly remember their early days of studying Greek, getting so bogged down identifying the “trees” (parsing individual particles and roots in Plato’s Gorgias) that they completely missed the “forest” (the actual philosophical argument).
To solve this, James Hamilton aggressively championed the use of interlinear translations. Instead of forcing students to look up every word, the Hamiltonian system places the English translation directly beneath the original text.
The hosts discuss their own experiences with similar tools, like the famous Loeb Classical Library editions (where the Greek or Latin is on the left page and the English is on the right). Dr. Winkle fondly remembers how the older Loeb editions would notoriously leave the “racy” parts of ancient texts untranslated in English, coyly putting them into Italian or French instead. They also reminisce about using the heavily annotated Clyde Pharr text for Vergil and the Benner text for Homer. While traditional professors sometimes viewed these tools as “cheating,” they undeniably allowed students to read faster and cover more ground.
The Problem of Syntax and the Watermelon Rind
However, Hamilton’s system had a fatal flaw. To make the interlinear translation perfectly smooth, Hamilton would actively rearrange the ancient Latin and Greek word order to match English syntax.
Dr. Noe vehemently objects to this, offering a brilliant, nostalgic metaphor. He compares reading a classical language to eating a watermelon.
When you buy a box of pre-cubed, seedless watermelon at the grocery store, it is incredibly convenient and palatable. This is what Hamilton is doing: pre-packaging the text for easy consumption. But for Dr. Noe and Dr. Winkle (who proudly declare themselves “rind guys”), the true joy of a watermelon is taking a massive, messy slice and eating it all the way down into the white rind, feeling the contrast between the sweet red fruit and the bitter edge.
The syntax—the specific, artistic arrangement of words in a sentence—is the beautiful rind of the Latin language. By rearranging the sentence to fit an English mold, you strip the ancient literature of its poetry, its emphasis, and its unique charm.
The Llewellyn Method: A Better Path Forward
Instead of Hamilton’s syntactical butchery, Dr. Noe advocates for a four-step pedagogical method he learned from his colleague, Nancy Llewellyn.
- Recitatio: Read the sentence aloud in the original Latin.
- Enodatio: “Unknot” the sentence. Rearrange the Latin words into an English subject-verb-object syntax so the student understands the basic grammatical flow.
- Explicatio: Explain the complex words using simpler Latin equivalents (e.g., explaining aquila as magna avis—a big bird).
- Recitatio Altera: Read the sentence a second time in its original, beautiful, untouched Latin word order.
This method provides the scaffolding students need without forcing them to rely entirely on an English crutch, keeping them immersed in the target language.
Sponsors: Fuel for the Philologist
Before closing the doors of the Novum Vomitorium, the hosts thank the team that makes the magic happen:
- Mishka: The unsung (but highly praised) audio engineer who stitches the podcast together with record speed.
- Scott Van Zen & Ken Tamplin: The rock legends providing the blistering guitar arpeggios and bumper music.
- Ratio Coffee Giveaway: Want to win a beautiful Ratio 4 coffee maker? Email the hosts with the secret Latin language code word QUATUOR (Q-U-A-T-U-O-R) to enter the drawing!
- The Moss Method & Latin Per Diem: Dr. Noe announces that he is combining his Greek and Latin instructional websites into one massive, one-stop hub at latinperdiem.com. With nearly 2,200 free daily lessons covering everything from Caesar to the Renaissance, it is the ultimate resource for taking your skills from “neophyte to erudite”.
The Gustatory Parting Shot
We end Episode 169 with a profoundly poetic observation on dairy. Dr. Winkle delivers a Gustatory Parting Shot from the American writer and intellectual Clifton Fadiman:
“Cheese: milk’s leap towards immortality.”
Whether you are seeking the immortality of classical literature or just a really good block of cheddar, we thank you for listening.Valete! (And stay far away from the ham stir fry).
