What Latin phrase appears in the Commander's study in the novel?

The Latin phrase in The Handmaid’s Tale is “Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.” In the novel, the phrase is discovered scratched inside the closet of the Commander’s house by the previous Offred. It is mock Latin, not a genuine classical Latin sentence, and is usually translated as “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.”

The Commander explains the phrase to Offred after she asks about it during their illicit Scrabble games. The previous Handmaid had left it as a secret message of encouragement before taking her own life. For Offred, the words become a private connection with another woman who endured the same system.

Readers sometimes mistake the phrase for an authentic Roman motto or assume it appears in the Commander’s study. Its significance comes from its deliberately crude, invented Latin and from the way Gilead’s officials appropriate old symbols while suppressing women’s speech. The phrase later became one of the story’s best-known resistance slogans.