But that was more of a jab at literary snobs who would tout "Homer in the original Greek" or "Marcus Aurelius in the original Latin" or "Old Testament in the Or

But that was more of a jab at literary snobs who would tout "Homer in the original Greek" or "Marcus Aurelius in the original Latin" or "Old Testament in the Original Hebrew". It has been such a meme, probably for centuries. Because it was not so long ago when university students were actually conversant in many classical languages such as those.