Well, I guess the World Wildlife Fund was actually smart enough (Which isn't much of an award, because anyone's smarter than wrestling idiots) to take wwf.org, while the Wicked Wrestling Freaks got wwf.com
To Bob Youngblatt Salve, Frater! >utor, fruor, fungior and vescor I laughed out loud when I read that. I had been tempted, ere this, to suggest to you that you and I might have this communal bond (among other interests) like a fraternity password, used (a la "shibboleth", Shoshanna) to separate the brethren from the gentiles. We did NOT have the same Latin teacher. ( I calculate I am three years older than you and from a different part of the country)Perhaps we had the same texts. I trouble the AWAD group w/ this mindless trivia in order to raise another trivial Q to you Latin scholars out there. Were you also required to remember that, " Utor, fruor, fungior,potior and vescor (and were the verbs in this same order?) take the ablative instead of the accusative?". It really seems a rather obscure rule, of not much practical use. I took six years of Latin, enjoyed it at the time and it has proved quite useful and enjoyable over the years. Vocabulary, grammar, syntax, and much more have atrophied with age, but I could not forget,by strongest stroke of the "Delete" key, that " utor, etc. etc." Could there have been a conspiracy among Latin teachers to impose this recondite wisdom on submissive students? Were we all required to memorize the same passages or were teachers permitted,ad libitum, to choose their own favorites. The De Bellico Gallica bit was obligatory, of course, but what about, "Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientiam nostram" down through, and a bit past, "O tempora! O mores!" Or "Arma virumque cano ... Troiae qui primus ab oris, etc" or "O fons Bandusiae, splendidior vitro" "Carthago delenda est! etc, etc(BTW, I gave the Spelschlocker, poor dear, the night off. Didn't want her to blow a thingummy with all these funny words). Shall we, band of brothers (sisters,too) go to our separate graves with these common bits of arcane knowledge without knowing that other friends out there somewhere have been given these self-same miraculous keys to human understanding and the secrets of the universe? Shall we compare notes? The test papers have already been graded; ergo, Honor Code does not apply. I sense the o'erwhelming smell of an era that is (alas, say I ) quite gone forever. Please note that the foregoing "draft" quotes are from memory. Scribbler is too lazy and tired to check their accuracy on paper and not practiced enough to go the on-line route. Have fun correcting me. A final word. I daresay this proposal is not YART and therefore suggest a new acro-breviation that may be applicable : TABNGAD i.e. "THANKS ANYWAY, BUT NOBODY GIVES A DAMN." Semper idem, ....... Scribbler
Latin Great God! Scribbler -- your Latin teacher, if still alive, will be coming for you to give you a dozen of the best, and if passed along to the great Bennet's in the sky, will surely haunt you for at least the next 7 years.
You misquoted Cicero. It's, "Quousque tandem, Catalina, patientia nostra abuteris?" patientia nostra is in the ablative, not the accusative as you wrote it. Why? Because abuteris is a compound of utor!!!
Scribbler remembered: The De Bellico Gallica bit was obligatory, of course
Did you mean the beginning of De Bello Gallico, where it goes "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres"? I think it was one of the most interesting Latin texts I ever had to study...
I sense the o'erwhelming smell of an era that is (alas, say I ) quite gone forever.
I can say that this era continues in at least one place. I spent my high school years at Boston Latin School (oldest public school in the country - founded in 1635). It is a 6-year school, and Latin is required during the first 5 years. I'm in my thirties, but I know that this tradition, with the many examples of Latin teacher torture you cited, lives on.
JAZZO > did you lose, etc. As a Southerner, I TALK very slowly, taking breaths as needed. As a TYPIST, I also type slowly, just a bit faster than H&P.(Generally do OK w/ WORD. However, as an AWAD poster, I cannot make anything (in this format or whatever it's called) come out the way I intend for it to do. Sorry, I'll keep trying.
Marianna - > Did you mean? A. Yes It seems a very personal way, does it not, of bridging together 2000+ years.
BYB > Marcus Tullius & abutor - - Mea culpa, Magister I admire your scholarship even as you correct my errors. As I said earlier, BYB could "authoritatively and succinctly settle such" Latin matters. The lawyer in me, however, compels me to offer some words, not exculpatory words, but merely words in mitigation. (a) I am pleased that, at least, my memory was true. I remembered (after about 50 years) "patentia nostra" , wrote it that way and then -alas! - CHANGED it to accusative, thinking, in English, that it didn't "look right" "How long, O Catiline, will you abuse our patience?" and forgetting about COMPOUNDS of utor taking the ablative. Should we add "abutor" to the list of 5 or add "and their compounds" to it? (b) You should also note the time of the post was after 1AM (as this one is)and Scribbler stated he was tired and not bothering to check sources. (c) Not only that, but the dog ate my homework and (d) Dad had a wreck while driving me to school this morning. All things considered, Teach, could you see your way clear to raising the grade to an A-, It would mean a lot to me. Thanks, Scribbler
When reading Caesar, the teacher never bothered to point out that the reason Caesar was willing to spend so many years in Gaul after he had completed his original mission to prevent further destabilization, was that he was getting rich from his lion's share of the value of captives sold as slaves. He went there only moderately wealthy, but became one of the three richest men in Rome. The other two got their money the same way.
Scribblere certior facto, as Caesar used to say, he does just fine for an old guy.
For all you Latin fans who say how much you enjoyed reading Caesar, I thought he came off sounding like a pompous ass. I enjoyed Cicero, but there are lots of Latin geeks who consider him one of the world's great bores. My idea of the world's greatest bore is Livy.
A pompous ass indeed! Yes, I would agree with that as well... yet, the pompous ass told stories of discovering foreign lands, their peoples and traditions, setting up camps in dark forests and of course those gory battles. Translating all of that was a fascinating to me, I felt as if I were establishing a unique link between the history of 2000 years ago and my own history. Having said that, some of the descriptions of the battles were graphic enough to make us all queasy in the classroom!
Since we have multiple translators aBoard, can anyone help w/ the following quotes? I believe I have stated them correctly. There is a book of modern vintage (a "pony" !!!!???) if help is needed. These are rather difficult.
"In curro meo ab Officina Baiuoaria Mechanica fabricato habeo machinam quae litteras per aethera transmittit."
"Meum balineum calidum verticosum cum aqua scintillante fontana Gallica impletum est. "
In curro meo ab Officina Baiuoaria Mechanica fabricato habeo machinam quae litteras per aethera transmittit.
Well, I've had a crack at it. It ain't good Latin as far as I can tell {"fabricato habeo"?) But Bill's at least partly right about radio, or maybe it just presages the air mail service!
Here's what I get literally:
In (or "Because of") the hurry to get out of (or just "leave"?) the "Baiuoarian Mechnical"(?) office (or "factory"?) I build I have (I have built?)a machine which transmits messages through the air.
Neither "Baiuoaria" nor "Mechanica" appear in either of my Latin dictionaries - possibly a deficiency but probably because Baiuoaria is a name. Whatever, it's not from the classical period. Leonardo perhaps?
I still think Rome would have been better off if Caesar had become Emperor. The man who made Octavian his heir surely was the greatest benefactor Rome ever knew.
O Captain, my Captain, I'm so glad you asked. First, the translations. The speakers are old-fashioned YUPPIES, and the colloquies take place during those bewitching after-work hours at a local watering hole. The first speaker (these are a bit dated) says "I have a fax machine in my BMW." Magister (BYB), please correct my Sid Caesar faux-German, but "Officina Baiuoaria, etc" is asserted to be the Latin equivalent of "Bayerische(n) Motor Werken" etc,
The second speaker says " My Jacuzzi ( I might have used "Charybdis" but maybe it is a Trademark) is filled w/ Perrier.("aqua scintillante fontana Gallica") The quotations come from books by Henry Beard, LINGUA LATINA OCCASIONIBUS OMNIBUS and LINGUA LATINA MULTO PLURIBUS OCCASIONIBUS (Latin For Even More Occasions), the latter published 2744 a.u.c. Beard has, in English, a clever slant on American culture of the late 80s and his Latin seems to me to be simultaneously proper and creative (op. cit.) BYB, these may be a bit infra dig. for you, but you might take a look if you have not seen the books. CapK, Marianna,others interested, ck it out.
de balneis bmwiisque I'm always behind everyone since my computer is in my office, so on Monday morning I see all this stuff, and it takes a good while to read it all.
I don't have a Latin dictionary in the office, but when I read the original post, I did get the one about the jacuzzi and sparkling water, but missed the BMW one. No comment on the atrocity of this dog latin.
For a really elegant modern translation into Latin, let me recommend Winnie Ille Pu, an excellent, and funny, translation of A.A.Milne's classic into classical Latin. I forget the name of the translator (the book is at home). I contains the immortal line, "De heffalumpibus semper dubitandum est."
Magister, My copy of WINNIE ILLE PU is a paperback (revised edition with notes and glossary), but it is peppered throughout w/ the Pooh drawings. The Translator is, as I assume you have checked by now, Alexander Lenard. For the benefit of others who may be interested, Lenard, born in 1910 in Budapest, fled from the Nazis and ended up in Brazil. The translation of Pooh into Latin was the work of seven years, a process which was started by translating it into German. Lenard was fluent in twelve languages at the time of his death in 1972. The cover of the book proudly asserts that Winnie Ille Pu is the only book in Latin ever to grace the New York Times bestseller list. I liked (Cicero style) "O tempora , o mos ablutionis retroauricularis!" which Notes translate as "O this modern custom of washing behind the ears!" cf. "O tempora! O mores!" Winnie Ille Pu is best enjoyed by me, with my lapsed Latin, with a copy of Winnie the Pooh at my elbow for ready reference.
The thought of a bunch of tipsy yuppies, G&Ts waving wildly in the air, as they slaughter Latin is possibly one of the most frightening thoughts that has ever crossed my mind. Timeo yuppiensis ...
malendipity came to mind, and when i googled it to see if it had been coined before, i stumbled upon "Schlimmbesserung", which is evidently a German word (who'd have guessed?) meaning "an [ostensible] improvement that makes things worse". the example cited by one site is the invention of the styrofoam cup.
>s there a word meaning "serendipity" in the context of bad luck?
to what degree? mischance, misfortune, adversity? a neutral word (not necessarily lucky or unlucky) is fortuity > fortuitous, which has come to be often misapplied (through the malaprop process) to good fortune.
Let me see if I can beat you guys the punch and keep from getting clobbered:
Although it didn't appear in my quick search of an evidently poor online dictionary, ober (but not Ober), in the sense the original question suggested, means "upper." That's where you get Ober the waiter and all that stuff. The funny thing is, it's smack in the middle of a name I suggested for a racing horse on another board.
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mischance, misfortune, adversity?
