History

Cicero gives us a glimpse into the effects of multilingualism in Ancient Rome, when he writes how bīnī, an ordinary Latin word, had come to sound rather rude.

In Latin, bīnī just means 'two each', but people who also knew Greek might instead hear the Greek word βίνει! ('fuck!').

— Danny Bate (@DannyBate4) January 3, 2023