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How did velle give rise to vel?
Some time ago I asked about the missing imperative of velle.
The answer indicated an old imperative (or indicative) second person singular form, vel, and that this word became a conjunction.
I am familiar with the verb velle and conjunction vel, but…
Joonas Ilmavirta
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A word for bad quality joke
I recently left an unnecessary comment because I could not resist telling a bad joke.
That made me wonder: What would be a good (classical) Latin word for a bad quality joke?
The joke can be any kind of short joke, wordplay or similar, but it has to…
Joonas Ilmavirta
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Why "idolatria" instead of "idololatria"?
Although the idea of idolatry has been present for a long time, I believe St. Paul is the first to use the term εἰδωλολατρία, e.g. Gal 5:20. (Corrections welcome!)
Two surprises come when we look at the Vulgate:
εἰδωλολατρία is translated as…
brianpck
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8
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Approaches to translating "without + verb"
I was recently doing a translation of a phrase like the following:
You can see everything without blinking.
Here was my briefly considered attempt:
Omnia sine nictatione videre vales.
I was relieved that nictatio has some attested forms, but it…
brianpck
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8
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4 answers
How to say "as" emphatically?
Consider the sentence "Marcus spoke as a manager".
Imagine that Marcus was speaking at a company event, and he gave his speech as a manager, not as a coworker — as a representative of the company, not his private self.
To emphasize this aspect, one…
Joonas Ilmavirta
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8
votes
2 answers
Proper parsing of "respondeo dicendum quod"
Anyone who has read the Scholastics, such as St. Thomas Aquinas, is familiar with the basic structure of an articulus: (Here's an example.)
Objections ("videtur quod...")
Quote from authority ("sed contra est...")
Corpus ("respondeo dicendum…
brianpck
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8
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2 answers
What is the meaning of this quote by Marcus Tullius Cicero?
I came across this quote:
"Laudant quae sciunt, vituperant quae ignorant; laudare a bonis et vituperari a malis unun atque idem est."
It was attributed to Cicero, but it seems that this attribution is wrong or the phrase does not exist at all.
Is…
João Afonso
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8
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3 answers
How to order someone to want something?
I asked yesterday about the imperative of velle, and it turned out that does not really have an imperative.
If the most obvious option is not available, how should I give an order to want?
A phrase or two with a classical use example would be…
Joonas Ilmavirta
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Ancient guides or descriptions of punctuation
We had a question about punctuation in classical Latin and it received some great answers.
It left me with one question, though:
Are there ancient guides or descriptions of punctuation?
I am not looking for modern analyses of inscriptions or other…
Joonas Ilmavirta
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8
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1 answer
Is memento(te) semantically a future imperative?
The verb meminisse is irregular.
It has only the active perfect system (memini, meministi, meminit…) and the imperatives memento and mementote.
These imperatives are future imperatives by form, and I would like to know if they are future by meaning,…
Joonas Ilmavirta
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8
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2 answers
cum/tum and the Latin version of Herodotus
I've started reading Johann Schweighäuser's 1822 translation into Latin of Herodotus' Histories, and already the first sentence is giving me some trouble.
The Greek, which I can puzzle my way through just about half of, reads
Ἡροδότου Ἁλικαρνησσέος…
Joel Derfner
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8
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2 answers
Why is perfect passive participle from 'enuntio' - 'enunciatus'?
In my dictionary enuntio is first conjugation verb,
enuntio, avi, are
Now in Spinoza there came up this word - 'enunciatum', which is said to be (source - Wictionary) coming from enuntio, as alternative form of 'enuntiatus', Perfect passive…
Aili J.
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8
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"Inter canem et lupum" in a Latin text?
A search for infra horam vespertinam, inter canem et lupum finds lots of blog posts (and dictionaries!) citing this Latin proverb as the ancestor of French entre chien et loup. (Meaning the evening, when you can't tell the difference between a dog…
Simon Branch
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8
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How do you say "I'm having dinner/lunch/breakfast" in Latin?
I know that cena means dinner, prandium means lunch, and ientaculum means breakfast. But how do you say "I'm having dinner" (or lunch, or breakfast)? I can think of a few ideas, such as:
Habeo cenam. Habeo prandium. Habeo ientaculum.
Edo cenam.…
ktm5124
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8
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How would you say "body" as in when stating a law of physics?
When writing a Reddit post in Latin, I used the word "corpus" in the singular when stating the second law of thermodynamics:
Secunda lex thermodynamicae docet nobis quia nullum corpus potest agere laborem (productum fortiae et distantiae, quod…
FlatAssembler
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