Snobby Latin Phrase
We appear to have missed the month of April for our snobby latin project. Mea culpa.

The phrase for the month of May is "dis aliter visum," which translates as "it seemed otherwise to the gods." It comes from Book II of the Aeneid:

cadit et Rhipeus, justissimus unus
qui fuit in Teucris et servantissimus aequi
(dis aliter visum)

(ll426-8, p140 in the Mynors edition.) In Mandelbaum's translation, this is Book II, ll573-5 (p43):

Then Rhipeus, too, has fallen—he was first
among the Teucrians for justice and
observing right; the gods thought otherwise.

The appropriate usage is when something happens that is not what you had thought would or should happen. A rough English equivalent would be "the best laid plans of mice and men..." Other rough translations include, "God works in mysterious ways," "it wasn't meant to be, "or "the world's a funny place." An example: "I can't believe that (choose your least favorite politician) won the election. I would have thought we had learned our lesson ... but, dis aliter visum."

References, for the curious:
Mandelbaum, Allen, trans. The Aeneid of Virgil. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982.
Mynors, R.A.B., ed. P. Vergili Maronis Opera. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969.