Sailor Talk

One of Julia's piano books has a simplified (actually maybe not simplified) arrangement of "Popeye, the Sailor Man." She sang the first line to me and then, with a smile, re-sang it thus: "I'm Popeye the nauta man!" Sensing my befuddlement, she asked, "Do you get it?" I obviously didn't. "It's just a little joke," she explained. "It's just a little Latin." Ah. A little Latin. Julia quietly apologized for making a learned joke beyond her father's ken. Somewhere in the background I thought I heard Katharine warble, "Popeye homo nauticus sum!"