Crenshaw's Books & Decks

Consecrated phrases is a very approachable and useful dictionary for any student or professional who needs a reliable source to translate or just understand common Latin expressions, formulas and words used in theological and ecclesiastical texts (but not only in those). The book offers a great selection of entries, which are defined accurately but with an approachable and easy to understand language.

The dictionary might appeal to those lay readers who want to learn the original meaning of words that are commonly used in English and have a Latin and/or ecclesiastical origin.

On the other hand, I think the book is not comprehensive, as some common formulas used in titles related to Curia dignitaries, are not mentioned. To mention just one that I find a lot in my texts "in partibus infidelium" (in the land of the infidels). On the other hand, other words that are commonly known and understood by everybody are unnecessarily defined, for example, (singing) "a capella".

Having this sort of dictionary in Kindle format is just very handy, so I am very happy with my purchase. Still, the lack of complete justification of the text makes it look unpolished, and I find that visually annoying. However, the main sin of the Kindle version is the total absence of an alphabetic index in the table of contents (I had to use notes to do that), while the crossed references between entries are not linked either. The book is not cheap for Kindle, so a bit of more thought and consideration for the reader would have been great.