Today a kind Latin teacher let me know that the English to Latin page was not working. I fixed it. Sorry about that!
Today I modified the code that Google Analytics uses to keep track of traffic on this site.
That was a major change. Because of the way the internet works, some of Numen’s old data might be cached in your browser — causing weird errors like “AJAX could not be loaded” and other such nonsense.
Fear not — the fix is easy.
Here are several steps you can take to fix the problem in your web browser:
It’s that time of year again — Fall semester has begun! That means this site has begun picking up steam. During summers and other long breaks (spring and the winter holidays mainly), the site takes a sudden downturn while students enjoy their time off. But whenever a new semester starts, visits pick up dramatically. The uptick this year is quite high — almost 40% over last year.
As the years go by, this site gets better and better. More errors are corrected, more features are added, etc. I’m working on a some new features that I hope will benefit everyone greatly — not just students but also the Latin academic community as a whole.
Please continue sharing this site with students and teachers of Latin. I love watching the community grow year after year.
Also, please continue marking errors as you come across them. I can’t fix every single error in a timely manner, but I’ll do my best to get as many as I can. Please keep in mind that some errors are harder than others to fix due to the nature of the computerized database employed here versus the organic nature of a human language like Latin.
In any case, please enjoy your new semester! Good luck!
I’m sure most of our regular visitors have noticed a button to report errors that occur in Latin words. We have a great community here and many of you report errors regularly.
One of those errors recently reported was the verb mereō. It turns out that when the dictionary was originally loaded into the database, a few errors crept in. This is normal and as I find the errors, I correct them.
When I was correcting mereō today, I wondered if it were possible that more 2nd conjugation verbs were erroneous — often there is a pattern caused by a programming bug or a data encoding error. After running a quick database query, I discovered that there were indeed 20 or so 2nd conjugation verbs that were listed as 1st or 3rd.
The explanation is simple: in the Lewis Elementary dictionary, occasionally the compound verbs are listed without a macron in the infinitive (exempli gratiā, inhaereō). It is so rare that I never programmed an exception to the rule that said “if an infinitive has a macron, make the verb 2nd conjugation.”
So needless to say I fixed those 20 verbs. Despite that these errors happen every once in a while, I feel that more than 95% of the words in the database are happily error free. Nevertheless, please do continue reporting errors. Someday I’d like to see this dictionary approach 99%+ error-free entries!