Dear Friends, This email is prompted by someone on another list asking what "Incipit Mensis" means in Latin and the responder said -- "begins the month" [singlar month, a month] Of course you can always look-up these Latin terms that prevail in legal, Roman Catholic, European, and medical documents, but that can become a tedious and distracting task, especially when you merely want to understand the gist of it. You might try this: Look at each word, then consider what more formal language words come to mind. With the above example> incipit---inceptive, incipient...So. you think "beginning." mensis---menses= the plural form of "that" time of the month, as in menstruation [Notice the word's endings are like thesis (one formal college paper) vs. theses (multiple formal college papers) You can draw upon your everyday English language experience to decode Latin. When in doubt, stretch for more formal words, like: automobile instead of car, mortuary instead of funeral home, podiatrist instead of foot doctor, etc. Comprende muchachos? [Understand, my friends?] BB