From the Language Log , a note on Sir William Jones, the great scholar credited with identifying the Indo-European family of languages and founding modern historical linguistics: “At an early stage in his life, Jones’s father had considered attaching him to a chambers to get a legal education, but Jones had resisted this on the understandable grounds that the quality of the Latin used in English law books was so very bad.” Studium discendi voluntate quae cogi non potest constat , I guess .
(via the Volokh Conspiracy )
