Back in the day, as your grandmother used to say, when secondary school curricula included Latin as a mandatory subject, the mumbled response among its victims was: 'First it killed the Romans, now it's killing me,' with the exception of those students privileged to be taught by a genuine teacher (and alas they are so rare) at QRC, who taught Latin as a secret language that his eager students could use to communicate with each other in the presence of uncomprehending parents, teachers and other bastions of authority.

There are very few occasions in my life when I have wished I had been born male instead of female. One was when I learned about the legacy this man (and may God forgive me for forgetting his name) left to his students, who could, years later, greet each other in a foreign airport or on Frederick Street with, '

Salve, amicus' and be immediately understood and accepted as a QRC fellow alumnus.

It was a secret society, making the members feel they had a superior intelligence…giving them the self-confidence to go on to brilliance in their chosen careers, or just to develop unusually brilliant minds that they kept to themselves

They are still with us, and they know who they are.

The curricula of schools in Trinidad now have eliminated Latin, just as we students back in the day thought it was useless and wished it would be removed forever.

If you are involved in industrial relations, however, male or female, I am now made aware of the importance of basic knowledge of Latin.

I was wrong then, as I so often am. Latin, as a language, is not dead as I predicted. As time, in the relentless

tempus fugit way it has, sped by, I learned that Rome is still very much with us.

The Colosseum still stands, and if you do not have the privilege of having been taught it, it might be a good idea to keep a Latin/English dictionary close by, as Industrial Court awards are now being sprinkled liberally with Latin words, often misinterpreted.

Omnia praesumuntur rite esse acta, from award in GSD TD No 340/2017, for example, does not mean that you are automatically going to win the case, but it is close, as it claims you have done everything that should have been done in accordance with the law (and do not lie about it, as the maxim of equity is that 'he who comes into equity must come with clean hands, and if you get found out, the backlash will be severe).

Do not forget section10(3)(b) of the Industrial Relations Act says the Industrial Court must 'act in accordance with equity.'

Just in case you have misplaced your Latin/English dictionary, the word 'equity' comes from the Latin word

aequitas, which meant then, as it still does, 'justice, uprightness, evenness, uniformity, fair play and impartiality.'

Then there is the award in IRO No 8 of 2021, an important award that, as negotiations continue between the PSA and the rest of the Public Service will be referred to often, as it involves the payment of funds, it involves not only the

mens rea but also the

actus reus.

This does not mean, as one bush la