Getting It Right

by Sharon Warkentin Short

            A friend of mine told the story of how their eldest daughter (upper elementary age) had taunted her little sister for being “ig-NOR-ant” of some fact. The mother had responded, “If you are going to call somebody ignorant, you should probably pronounce it correctly.”

            I feel a little bit like that mom when I see scholars using inaccurate forms of terms borrowed from other languages. If we are going to toss around Latin phrases, we should probably make sure our grammar, spelling, and pronunciation are correct. I am referring to variations of the phrase represented by the abbreviation CV, which is widely used in academic circles. It stands for “curriculum vitae,” and can be translated “course of life.” Although “vita” is the correct nominative form of the word for “life,” when it is used in the prepositional phrase it must be written “vitae” meaning “of life”. (“Vitae” is also the plural nominative form, which might be a source of some of the confusion.)

            All that to say, “curriculum vita” is never correct. Only when it stands alone could “vita” be used to describe the summary of an individual’s life. “Curriculum vitas” (meaning more than one CV) is also erroneous. To refer to more than one such document, the correct form is “curricula vitae” (“courses of life”). Oh, and it is properly pronounced “vee-TIE,” not “vee-TAY.”

            Who cares? Or more to the point, who would even know? Probably only a handful of Latin scholars would recognize these errors, but excellent scholarship by definition demands accuracy in as many details as humanly possible. Practicing precision is habitual for outstanding scholars, in small matters as well as large.