The Sign

The sign on the front of the hostel would often cause comment. "What does it mean?" being the usual question.

First off, the logo is obviously the interlocked letters of SYHA, with the year the hostel was opened, 1931. Broadmeadows was the first SYHA hostel, and opened on the 2nd of May of that year.

Yes, but what does it mean? Well, it is latin, and most attempts came up with something like "I invented the door"or "I came in  the door".

"I invented" simply because it sounds the same, or "I came" or "I come" because it reminded them of Julius Caesar's  famous saying: "Veni, vidi, vici", "I came, I saw, I conquered."

 "Door" because it sounded a bit like french "porte",or spanish "puerta",  for a door, and was reminiscent of "portal", "portcullis", "porch" or some such.

Or someone remembered from school latin that "porta" was a door.

But a port is also a harbour, or haven, a shelter for boats. "Portus" means the same in latin. "Portum" is the accusative or objective case, so is the object of the sentence.

"Inveni" is the perfect tense of "invenire" which means "to discover" or, more simply, "to find".

So the sign simply means: "I have found shelter" or "I have found a safe haven".

When I was the warden, the current hostel stamp was getting a bit worn and a hosteller said he would get a new one made. So we decided to include the sign in the stamp.