The Corner

It’s All Greek to Me

A reader notices a multi-language typo:

On the Corner I noticed that you used the phrase “Deo gracias.”  I’m quite sure you mean Deo gratias–with a “t.”  As you know, “gracias” is Spanish, but easily confused for the first declension Latin noun gratia[s], since it derives from the Middle Castillian “graçias,” which uses (the long defunct) “ç” as a phonetic vulgarization of the intervocalic “t,” as pronounced in Ecclesiastical Latin.  A good guide to the correct orthography is St. Jerome, who in 1 Cor. 15:57 puts it, “Deo autem gratias…”

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