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so...we were looking for a phrase that would mean 'the truth always changes' to make a funny 'motto shirt' for a class I was taking.
veritas semper mutabilis?
but need the correct grammar and word order.
yes, IHLIU and asked on other forums and gotten no response, so I know that some of you have strong Latin backgrounds and may be able to help. Please.
Last edited by va-vavoom; 06/29/11 04:00 PM.
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Word order can be pretty flexible in Latin, so I wouldn't worry too much about that. The veritas semper part is right on. Lemme check the change part. I think I'd go with veritas semper mutat. Mutabilis is an adjective. You might could go with semper mutabilis est veritas or even veritas semper mutabilis est. I could run it past some folks I know who are more conversant with Latin or someone else here might add some helpful comments.
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old hand
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"Veritas semper mutat"
Apparently Lewis Carrol came up with his name by latinising his original name. I was wondering whether the above line could be acronymised (yikes sorry) into a pseudonym.
I guess it is "new game season" on awadtalk.
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mutat mutabilis
that's the part that was giving me the most trouble. I think most people recognize veritas. Growing up as a 'service brat' Semper Fidelis was part of every day life. I thought the change portion would be similar to the fidelis.
Never having had Latin in any way, shape or form I couldn't figure out the parts of speech stuff. Thank you.
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The fidelis in semper fidelis is also an adjective. Just my own taste but I kinda like Semper mutat veritas.
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And there you have it VV, I am glad you decided to bring it up.
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veritas semper mutat
Semper mutat veritas
The word order doesn't make a difference? in trying to figure out mottos, etc. in genealogy and military histories even when I recognized the words, the order didn't always make sense to me. But, as I said, I never studied Latin so just kind of accepted that it was nothing like English.
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Maybe it would make a difference if I explained the factors behind the request.
Specifically this was a class in Maritime Law where every time something was enforced as 'this is the way it is, the ONLY way it is' something would come up and 'the truth changed'.
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The word order doesn't make a difference? in trying to figure out mottos, etc. in genealogy and military histories even when I recognized the words, the order didn't always make sense to me.
It's sometimes a little difficult for speakers of languages with a relatively fixed word order to understand or believe that word order is not as important in inflectional languages such as Sanskrit or Latin. Basically word order (e.g., in English) is used to show the syntactic relationship between the verb and its subject and/or object(s). Latin has case endings that reflect what the exact relationship between a finite verb (mutat) and its subject (veritas) is. The noun veritas is in the nominative case (which is usually used for subjects). So, veritas mutat or mutat veritas can only mean "(the) truth changes". Change the case to the accusative, veritatem mutat (or mutat veritatem), and the whole sentence changes: "S/He changes (the) truth". It's gets to be even more fun when you throw in words like semper (an adverb) or adjectives which modify the noun. Take for example, the title of a famous poem by Lucretius, De rerum natura, literally "about" + "of-things" + "(the) nature", meaning when you put it together, "about the nature of things". The preposition (de) and the noun it goes with (natura) get split apart by another noun (natura). (This is why I always chuckle when people maintain that you cannot split infinitives in English because you cannot in Latin; first, infinitives in English a prepositional phrases, but not in Latin, and moreover, Latin loves to split prepositional phrases.)
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There's a Latin poem which contains the line militis in galea meaning, literally, 'of the soldier - in - helmet' or, more colloquially, in the soldier's helmet. In this case the preposition is stuck between the two nouns that we would think would go together. In Latin you can put the words in whatever order to represent the importance of a given word to your thought or, in the case of poetry, to make a more mellifluous sound.
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That makes more sense to me now. Thank you for the explanation.
I was reading the newspaper last night at work; an article on Mensa meeting in the Northwest. The article mention someone (Conan the Grammarian) who does a whole show on grammar and split infinitives, hanging prepositions, and dangling participles.
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Mensa meeting in the Northwest. The Portland gathering?
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I'm sure it was in Portland, it was the Oregonian that I was reading.I think they said it was this weekend, but the guy with the grammar schtick was from San Diego if I remember right. I'd look for more info but that paper is on the bottom of the parrot cage at this point. ;-{
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'kay; thanks. I'd like to have gone, but travel is darned expensive. Richard Lederer has a monthly article for the national magazine; bet it was him.
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Exactly! That was his name. Mensa is far beyond my capacity, but I enjoy looking at some of the stuff when I see it. The article gave four little 'test problems' to see on what level your brain works, I got three of them right. It was probably more experience than 'smarts' though.
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Can you post the test problems here va-vav, I'd like to know how my brain works....
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Sorry, but that's the paper that went into the bottom of the parrots cage. It's the paper we get at work so it's the Oregonian out of Portland OR. It would have been Thursday's edition. Let me see if I can find a link.
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Thanks for the link. We've just learned that Louisville will host the National Gathering in '15. Woo-hoo! I should add, though, that my son's (age 15 at the time) assessment is accurate, as far as my experience goes: Many Eccentric Nerds Sitting Around. 
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And there's also Boggle, a Qwirkle (it's a board game) tournament and a rock-paper-scissors competition.
"Socialization is a big deal," said Recht,
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and here is the actual Mensa Workout Quiz I did really well...especially the second time around, after I tried to backspace to check on an answer and it made me start all over again. Some of the questions related to things we have discussed on this forum, so guess I have learnt things by being here with you guys 
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