Verbum Latinum Hodie: Cupiditas

I Before I get started, I should probably remark on how long it’s been since I’ve posted on this blog…so long that WordPress seems to have initiated a whole new post format.  At first glance?  Not a big fan.  Pfft.

Today’s, or rather yesterday’s Latin word of the day, cupiditas is a feminine noun meaning a longing or desire.  The usage of cupiditas can lean to the positive and refer to a longing for something harmless, but more frequently, it seems to teeter the opposite direction and is paired with overwhelming carnal passions or obsessive desire for wealth.

The notion of longing in general has been pretty close to the surface in me the last few days…

After a slip and fall last week, I have a cupiditas to put on a sock without wincing in discomfort.

The week has been consumed with drafting the class schedule for the 2017-18 academic year.  In the process of digging for something schedule related, I came across a handwritten draft of an epilogue for my John Porter fanfic, Recovery.  I have a magna cupiditas to finally complete that, and to get back to some recreational writing in general.

Look at that gun…and I’m not talkin’ about the rifle!

Veering to the less than positive side of the word, having spent a good bit of time out and about with my fellow man in the last week, I have developed a maxima cupiditas to smack the next person who lets a door fly closed in my face, stops dead without warning in traffic, or cuts in front of me at the deli counter.  Honestly, what has happened to just plain basic courtesy lately?!  I offered to walk an elderly woman’s shopping cart back to the “cart corral” at Target the other day and she was so grateful you’d have thought I’d done her some huge service – actually, I thought the greater “service” on my part was my not asking out loud why she had had a poodle strapped into the baby seat of that same cart.  I admit to a cupiditas for a time when common courtesy wasn’t so very uncommon.

Mr. Rogers a la Richard Armitage Photo by George Pimentel

Oh well, until such a day rolls around, I think I’ll just continue to nurture my laeta cupiditas that this guy is every bit as Mr. Roger-y  on the courtesy front as he looks here in one of my all time favorite shots.  🙂

I will not venture to comment on the other multitude of cupiditates this image evokes….*cough*   Next up, today’s Latin Word of the Day…ignis:  FIRE!