Today I have a proverb for you. And proverbs are often some of the oldest things in the language. In Europe many of them go back to the Bible, which not only coined quite a lot of them but also popularised them as it was distributed around the Europe. And proverb itself comes from pro, to put forth, and verbum, meaning the word. So you were literally spreading the word. And the word is usually a moral or a reflection of culture or experience of some kind. So they tell you an awful lot, a little snapshot, if you like, in a word or in a phrase. And the proverd I'm going to talk about today is "when in Rome". It's usually shortened to "when in Rome". Of course, it's "When in Rome, do as the Romans do". And this one of the oldest. It was an admonition to travellers, really, to observe the local custom whenever you go there. And it's believed to have originated in a letter written by St Ambrose. And he was a fourth-century Bishop of Milan. And translated from Latin, his advice reads, "When you are at Rome, live the Roman style. When you are elswhere, live as they live elsewhere". Those words were part of a letter written in LAtin in about AD387 to St Augustine. And St Augustine was in Rome and was really confused about the right day for fasting, because he knew that the Roman church had decreed that Saterdat was a day sat aside for fasting. But in Milan, where he resided, there was no such requirement at all, so he didn't quite to know which custom to follow. It obviously varied from city to city. So he consulted the wise St Ambrose, who replied with that advice - "When in Rome, do as the Romans do". And that's exactly what he did. Not only that. He gave us some words that became enshrined in our memory pretty much for ever.
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