Expert: Maria - 9/6/2007

Question
NON LESSE ILLIGITIMUS TE CARBORUNDUM.
THIS IS ON A COIN FROM A RESTAURANT! PLEASE TRANSLATE.

Answer
Hello,

First of all the sentence you mention should be  ILLEGITIMIS NIL CARBORUNDUM, not “NON LESSE ILLIGITIMUS TE CARBORUNDUM” which is absolutely wrong.

Anyway ILLEGITIMIS NIL CARBORUNDUM  is nothing but a hodgepodge of two Latin terms [i.e.  ILLEGITIMIS, dative plural, literally meaning ‘the bastards’ as ‘illegitimate children’, and NIL or NIHIL meaning ‘nothing’ or ‘not’ in this case],  plus  a  nonexistent word, i.e. CARBORUNDUM , impersonal passive periphrastic of a verb which  does not exist at all  in classical Latin and therefore has no meaning.

In short ILLEGITIMIS NIL CARBORUNDUM is an example of the so-called Dog Latin (i.e. the creation of a phrase or jargon in imitation of Latin) maybe derived from a  mediaeval jingle which reads : "Si te dominorum vis facit furibundum, dico "illegitimis nihil carborundum" meaning “If  your owners arrogance enrages you, I say "don't let the bastards grind  you down”.

To conclude ILLEGITIMIS NIL CARBORUNDUM is usually translated as “Don't let the bastards grind  you down” and it seems that  such a  phrase, though wrong in Latin, has been popularized when U.S. general Joseph W. "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell (1883-1946) adopted it as his motto.

Best regards,
Maria