I was amazed to hear my son utter the immortal words, "Quis...ego," when he came home from his school, which is a 'bog standard comprehensive'. When I was a schoolboy - in the depths of the last century - at a traditional English school where we studied Latin, there were often cries of "Quis" closely followed by "Ego". Us boys were so lacking in gumption that it took our Latin teacher to explain to us why we used these terms. Quis is Latin for 'who?' Quis was called when someone had something that they did not want any longer. It may have been some food, a marble, a conker or other small item. So, quis was code for 'who wants it?' Ego means 'I'. So the call of 'Ego' simply showed that the caller wanted the item. The first person to call ego received it, which meant that at times there was a veritable chorus of boys shouting 'Ego!' You has to watch out as sometimes the item was something that you really didn't want, rubbish, for example.
As soon as I heard the phrase I quizzed by son about it and how it is used in the playground. He confirmed that it is used in exactly the same way as it was in my school which is over 300 miles and over 30 years away. I asked him if he knew where the words came from and he had no idea - much as I hadn't all those years before. My son had more of an excuse though; Latin is not taught in his school and hasn't been for decades.
I have to say that I was secretly pleased that this tradition from my own school days is being continued but I would love to know how it has survived. I would like to think that it has been used in the playground all that time and it has been passed on from generation to generation without a break. There is another possibility. Perhaps it has been reintroduced into the school by a pupil from another school who has brought the tradition with him. I think I may well have to do a little detective work on this one.
How ever this piece of playground lore has survived, it is interesting that it has. It has also outlived the school subject that brought it into being by some margin. This devise clearly has an ongoing currency in schoolboy culture or it certainly would have fallen out of use. It would be interesting to know if my son's children will use 'quis...ego' in their playgrounds in years to come; I know my father would have certainly have recognised it.
As soon as I heard the phrase I quizzed by son about it and how it is used in the playground. He confirmed that it is used in exactly the same way as it was in my school which is over 300 miles and over 30 years away. I asked him if he knew where the words came from and he had no idea - much as I hadn't all those years before. My son had more of an excuse though; Latin is not taught in his school and hasn't been for decades.
I have to say that I was secretly pleased that this tradition from my own school days is being continued but I would love to know how it has survived. I would like to think that it has been used in the playground all that time and it has been passed on from generation to generation without a break. There is another possibility. Perhaps it has been reintroduced into the school by a pupil from another school who has brought the tradition with him. I think I may well have to do a little detective work on this one.
How ever this piece of playground lore has survived, it is interesting that it has. It has also outlived the school subject that brought it into being by some margin. This devise clearly has an ongoing currency in schoolboy culture or it certainly would have fallen out of use. It would be interesting to know if my son's children will use 'quis...ego' in their playgrounds in years to come; I know my father would have certainly have recognised it.
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