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What would people take "prō amōre signī" to mean in English? Also, is the use of ablative case for "amōre" correct) required following the preposition "prō", and how would different choices of case for "signī" influence the meaning?

mangobrain
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    Nothing, because signī is not a Latin word More seriously, the question is too general. Depending on context, the phrase could mean all kinds of things. And changing the case of a word would obviously change the meaning drastically. – Sebastian Koppehel Oct 08 '22 at 17:07
  • Well that's frustrating but not too surprising. I took it from https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/signum#Latin - where it is listed as singular, genitive case. Is that table just plain wrong, or...? – mangobrain Oct 08 '22 at 18:28
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    Also - I'm fine with there being multiple interpretations, and yes, there is a lack of context. A little ambiguity is intentional for my use case. But my Latin is basically non existent, so curious to see what interpretations people make, and whether they're even in the same ballpark as the interpretations I intend. – mangobrain Oct 08 '22 at 18:31
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    I was just kidding, the Wiktionary table is fine, it should be written sīgnī, but apparently Wiktionary considers this redundant (because vowels before gn are always long). I'm personally not a great fan of “guess what I meant by this” questions, but if that's what you're after, okay… – Sebastian Koppehel Oct 08 '22 at 21:19
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    Noted, thanks! Case in point, I don't know enough of the language to know you were just kidding. :)

    I promise this isn't a "guess what this means, look how clever I am". I think I've translated a particular phrase, but I have no idea whether I've done it correctly or not. In use it'll appear without (written) context - think a crest or family motto kind of thing.

    What I think I've translated is "for the love of signals" - but I have no idea how close I've got, or what other potential translations back into English would be.

     – mangobrain Oct 08 '22 at 21:33
  • @SebastianKoppehel A vowel with no macron on Wiktionary sīgnifies a short vowel. The pronunciation given also specifies a short vowel. I just looked in LLPSI and it also writes signum (no macron). Now I'm puzzled. Maybe you have a new answer to add here? – Ben Kovitz Oct 09 '22 at 15:57
  • @BenKovitz: The most relevant question to Sebastian's comment is the following: What is the correct vowel quantity for words formed from sĭ̄gn-? – Asteroides Nov 01 '22 at 07:48

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I would take it to mean "for love of the signum", but I would need some context to guess which of signum's many meanings is meant.

Figulus
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    Thanks! That is as intended, so I'm not a million miles away. The primary meaning I have in mind is "signal" in the sense of "message" or "sequence of information", but other interpretations are welcome and ambiguity is a feature, not a bug, for my use case. I suppose follow up questions (if you don't mind) would be: is the meaning I gave a valid possible interpretation of "signum", and is my use of the genitive singular correct, or would another be more appropriate? – mangobrain Oct 09 '22 at 17:10