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Time for a little summer trivia game. Do you know the official mottos for the city of Yellowknife, The Northwest Territories and Canada?

If you can get all three, I am really impressed. Two out of three is not bad, and even if you get just one, that is probably better than most people.

The cities motto is 鈥淢ultum in Parvo,鈥� which is Latin for 鈥淢any things in a small place.鈥�  

Not many people are proficient in Latin these days, so I had to look it up. Personally, I find that motto a little dated and misleading. I discovered the city also has a vision statement: 鈥淧rotecting our city with pride, proficiency, passion and professionalism." 

Wow they really like using P words, and I know that this is not how I would describe the way the city works. So, it might be an aspirational dream, but it's not very close to reality. 

The NWT does not have a motto, although they like to call everything spectacular.

Canada's motto is 鈥淎 Mari Usque Ad Mare鈥� 鈥� once again Latin 鈥� meaning 鈥淔rom sea to sea.鈥� To bring it up to date, they would have to add another sea. Plus, from a geographic point of view, it should be from ocean to ocean to ocean. An ocean is much bigger than a sea, and a sea is surrounded by a whole lot of land, but both do have salt water, which a person can鈥檛 drink. 

I think the various levels of government should come up with some new mottos and vision statements. They could even run contests where people can submit ideas and then vote on them. It never hurts to make things more democratic. 

How about the motto 鈥淣ulla Hic Venia鈥� for the city dump? In English it translates as 鈥淣o amnesty here." So, people could come up with good mottos and then vote on which government or government department should have it.

How about 鈥淰ectihaua noris sunt,鈥� which means 鈥淭axes are us,鈥� or 鈥淭e non audimusm,鈥� translated as 鈥淲e don鈥檛 hear you鈥� in English.

Here is one that may fit some governments or politicians: 鈥淢endax mendax bracae ardent,鈥� also understood as 鈥淟iar, liar pants on fire.鈥� I wonder who should have that as an official motto? 

Ottawa has the motto 鈥渁dvance-Ottawa-En avant鈥� It is a bilingual motto because they think they are the capital of a bilingual nation. Advance is a traditional battle cry, as opposed to yelling retreat and en avant means forward. I find it not a very catchy motto. They could call it 鈥淐iarium perpetuud ex catino feroo,鈥� or the home of the iron rice bowl. 

Picking Latin for mottos or slogans is actually a brilliant idea because almost no one speaks Latin, so every ethnic group has to translate it into their own language, and this avoids language discrimination or preferential treatment.

I did take Latin for one year in high school and failed it so badly the teacher got a chuckle out of it. He said I had the distinction of being his worst pupil in 30 years of teaching. So, I wasn鈥檛 any good at it, but I was memorable.

Nowadays, you can type a phrase in any language you want and ask the internet to translate it into Latin. Voila! You get an answer. 

Languages are amazing in that they can come up with words for just about anything. Recently, the news was talking about tsunamis, which are big waves usually caused by earthquakes or landslides into water. The word itself is Japanese and it means harbour waves. Out in the ocean, a boat might not even notice the wave going by, but in a harbour, those same waves can cause massive destruction. So, when geologists wanted a name for this phenomenon, they just took the Japanese word and stuck it into the English dictionary. English is full of words that came from other languages.

So, now it's your turn to dream up some mottos for our various level of government.