quis est Monas Brickvir? He is none other than investigator privatus private detective, Ace Brickman. And this Lego set, set 10246-1: Detective’s Office, is named after Ace Brickman and his place of business. It even has his details printed on the window! When it came time to translate Ace into Latin, I went straight to my German-Latin visuelles worterbuch (visual dictionary). It has an entire section dedicated to games, and a section of that to playing cards. Here, then, is a handy summary of card-playing vocabulary.
ioculator joker eques jack regina queen rex king
rhombus diamond spiculum spade cor heart trifolium club
monas ace miscere to shuffle distribuere to deal ludere to play
vincere to win perdere to lose victor winner victus victa loser
Here’s an interesting fact. victor winner and victus loser both come from the verb vinco, vincere, vici, victum conquer. The Forth Principal Part – victum – is used to form both words. Drop the -um and you are left with the stem vict-. Add the ending -or and you get victor person who conquers. Add the ending -us or -a and you get victus or victa he or she that has been conquered.
You may recognise the Third Principal Part vici I conquered. It turns up in Caesar’s oft-quoted veni, vidi, vici I came, I saw, I won.
Are you able to read the title which is written on this window? Monas Brickvir Private Detective. This is the office (literally, seat of duty) of Monas Brickvir.