Agmine In Uno TSS April 27, 2012 Leeds United Macron will be pleased to hear that the new Leeds United shirt, unveiled today on the official site, has received mostly positive reviews from some of footballs most critical fans. The collar seems to be OK, it’s predominantly white, the material looks to be of a higher quality than what we’ve seen recently and if it wasn’t for the silly cartoon men on the shoulders (Macron’s logo) I’d personally say it was a solid 9/10 – although, I should point out that my verdict is based entirely on photographs since it isn’t available for purchase just yet. A major talking point following the unveiling has been the words Agmine in Uno which Macron have stitched into the back of the shirt along with the year of our formation (1919) and the club motto “Pride Of Yorkshire”. Obviously this was some kind of attempt at a Latin motto, much like Blackburn Rovers use with Arte et Labore which they claim translates to “by skill and hard work”. Unlike Blackburn’s motto, which I’m assured is a solid translation, it seems Agnime In Uno falls into the category of faux-Latin. What Macron were trying to translate was “Marching On Together”. I’m told that Agnime is not a real word, but appears to have been taken from agminālis – Of or pertaining to a march. In Uno meanwhile translate into upon one according to online translators – which it should be noted, are incredibly poor at translating Latin and are almost entirely to blame for the rise in poorly translated Latin mottos. Speaking to a Latin student on twitter, he suggested the club use ‘incedamus cuncti’ (let’s march on altogether) explaining that “mottos often use the subjunctive in Latin. Theirs is nonsensical.” Update: It seems ‘agnime’ is in fact a real word, but the Latin is of a poor standard and the phrase still doesn’t make any sense. This from Latin_Geek, originally posted in the comments field below. “Agmine” is a “real word”, despite what you write. It is the ablative singular of “agmen” which is a neuter noun that can mean “a march”. When nouns are declined into the nominative case, it generally means that something is happening “in, on, at, or within” the noun. What the club are trying to say with their crappy Bates-Latin is the phrase: “in one march”. Therefore both the noun (march) and the adjective (one), must be declined in the ablative. Because “agmen” is a neuter noun, the adjective must also take the neuter, so unus becomes “in uno”. The correct Latin syntax for this formulation should be “in uno agmine”, but whichever muppet translated it wanted to get the marching word at the front of the sentence, presumably because they had no knowledge of Latin. So there we go, “agmine in uno” is a bastardised, faux Latin phrase that literally means “in one march”, but can be dubiously rendered as “marching on together”. For those who want to take it a step further, the use of “agmine” is perhaps ironic because the literal meaning of “agmen” is “that which is driven”. By that I mean it refers to something that marches because it is forced to march, rather than because it chooses to – like a herd of cattle, or an army, or a Nazi death march… Latin_Geek goes on to offer a better translation; I think we should go for a present participle active… I reckon the best verb to use would be “procedo”. It has a military sense, and means “to go before, go forward, advance, proceed, march on, move forward, go forth”. So “procedentes”. For a nice bit of alliteration, take “pariter” as together, so “Procedentes pariter” – marching on together Possibly the greatest promotional video Leeds United have ever created accompanied the launch of the shirt which you can see below.