Deo gratias and other phrases

The short Latin lines Catholics use without translating.

Deo gratias, thanks be to God, is the response after the readings and a good habit after good news.

Requiescat in pace, may he rest in peace, said after naming someone who has died.

Ad maiorem Dei gloriam, for the greater glory of God, written at the head of work. Fiat, let it be done, Mary's answer, used when accepting something hard.

A vocabulary shapes what you can notice. Having a phrase ready for the dead, for gratitude, and for consent means those moments do not pass unmarked.

These are liturgical fragments that migrated into daily speech, which is what happens in any culture where worship is common enough to lend the language its shorthand.

Catholic households kept many of them long after Latin left the classroom, which is why they survive as phrases rather than as grammar.

Free, and best learned by using two of them rather than memorizing ten.

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