A new approach is needed

[John Cowan]

dlw scripsit:

> "In personam" in the law is the latin dative (objective) case meaning
> "against the person".

Accusative case.

> "In persona" is the latin genitive (possessive) case meaning "of the 
> person".

It isn't.  "Persona" is nominative, not genitive, and neither nominative
nor genitive can follow the preposition "in".

> Rarely do judges hold people in contempt for improper use of latin 
> gender or case.

Luckily for me, I'm not a judge.

> Perhaps you should be less rash in your judgements.

Perhaps you should be less rash in your assertions.

> In the nineteen sixties physics majors were required to take two
> foreign languages.  My were German and Latin. Since then I have
> gracefully forgotten all but the rudimentary basics. That era was
> before many of the posters to this list were born.

"Ignorance of [grammar] excuseth no man, for it is an excuse that
every man will plead, and no man know how to refute."

Allen and Greenough's Latin Grammar is available on the Web, as well
as lots of lists of Latin phrases.

-- 
A: "Spiro conjectures Ex-Lax."                  John Cowan
Q: "What does Pat Nixon frost her cakes with?"  jcowan at reutershealth.com
  --"Jeopardy" for generative semanticists      http://www.ccil.org/~cowan