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#132638 09/05/04 01:45 PM
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Faldage Offline OP
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I found this phrase written inside the back cover of my Latin textbook. My tentative translation doesn't make a whole lot of sense in any sort of normal way and I don't remember the translation my magistella came up with since it didn't seem to relate to the individual Latin words. Can any of our Latin scholars help me?


#132639 09/05/04 02:26 PM
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I found this phrase written inside the back cover of my Latin textbook.

Which phrase? Your subject line?

In the back of one of my older Latin textbooks, the reader is instructed to stand on the book in case of flood as it will "always be dry".



#132640 09/05/04 02:30 PM
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Faldage is out for a while, nuncle, but I know he was hoping you or Bingley or BobY or some nother would help him/us figure it out. I have an idea, but I'm a mere Roma wannabe.


#132641 09/05/04 02:39 PM
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Anna, sorry but the subject line is already in English. Eat more possum. An opossum is a large marsupial that looks freakishly like a large albino rat. Possum is also the first person present indicative of posse 'to be able; can' (made famous in the phrase posse comitatus 'sheriff's posse'. So, I don't know if I can help.


#132642 09/05/04 03:07 PM
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sorry but the subject line is already in English

Well, I'm guessing that's the whole point. Like the bastard Latin in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, only the other way around.


#132643 09/05/04 03:14 PM
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Well, I'm guessing that's the whole point.

Quicquid! Glad to be of service as the butt of his joke. I see it's also a hemistich from a Jimmy Dorsey song about Dixie.


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Eat is the 3rd person singular, present tense, subjunctive of ire, to go.

More is the ablative singular of mos, moris, habit, custom, manner.

Possum is, as nuncle mentioned, 1st person singular, present tense, indicative of posse (old style, potesse), to be able.


#132645 09/05/04 06:15 PM
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In reply to:

An opossum is a large marsupial that looks freakishly like a large albino rat. Possum is also the first person present indicative of posse 'to be able;


Up in this part of the world, possum also means a large marsupial, or, more accurately here in Zild, about 90 million large marsupials. Having actually eaten possum, I can advise against doing so, especially in Australia, where possums enjoy full protection under the law. They also don't taste very nice.


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So... ummm... eat more possum is a "Caesar adsum jam forte" that means... ummm... "Let him/her go in the way I can"? There must be a better joke in there. I'm missing something.


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So, your subject line "means" He/She/it may go by custom; I am able to _____.

Here's one for the others, from an inscription on a old vase: DATIS IN PINCV LAPOTVS COLONIA.


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