So I was going through glossary in the back of the textbook today, and I noticed by accident that the Latin verb for "to demand" is "poscere." I immediately laughed because I remembered there's a character on HBO's "Rome" named "Posca." He is Julius Caesar's secretary/clerk. He's short, old, moves very quickly, and has a tendency to speak out of turn, considering his situation in life - which I suppose is how he got a name like "Posca." I'm guessing that his name has the same root as the verb, and that there's also a corresponding adjective - poscus, posca, poscum? So the adjective "demanding" in the first declension would be "posca" and it would be used like "posca femina," "the demanding woman"? What makes me confused is that he is a male character with a name in the feminine form. I've heard that the writers of the show have made some mistakes with the Latin that the actors speak (like saying "dominus" when "domine" should be used... like in the sentences we've been translating, things like "Nimium rogas, Flacce" and "Tace, Flacce" and "Mane, Quinte." Second declension, vocative case?). But if the writers did make "Posca" the character's name on purpose, might it be a name in a diminutive sense, as if to say "little demanding one"? I don't know, but I found it interesting anyway.

~Rachael Stern