Latin, the language of love

When I courted the young lady who became my seventh wife (or was it the eighth?), I whispered, sweetly, de omnino nihilo in her ear. Latin has some sort of odd effect on the opposite sex, somewhat like Morticia's use of French arousing Gomez on the old Addams Family TV show. Somewhat. Try it on your SO:

in hoc signo vinces

esse quam videri

dulce decorum est pro patria mori

ars longa vita brevis

And my personal fave, sed qui fecit, refecit.

Latin as it is taught today takes two main variants:

• Ecclesiastical Latin. ("Church Latin") This is an intentionally very pretty-sounding form, and sounds very soft in its cadences and consonants. It should - it's the form used by the Roman Catholic Church. Think of boys' choirs.
• Latin Vulgate. ("Common Latin") This is the language that citizens and slaves actually spoke.

Where the Ecclesiastical form is flowing and soft, the Vulgar form is gutteral and harsh. Comparing the two is like comparing Italian and German, and I'm sure linguistics texts have focused on this extensively. However, da mihi bassia ("give me kisses") sounds equally sweet whether spoken by courtesan or slave, and in the end, that's all that matters.