i didn't understand why the plural for casus belli was the same as the singular. do you pronounce it differently when it's plural? it's funny, the "us" in casus would indicate singular (to my pitifully uneducated eye), and the "i" in belli looks plural. seems like strange construction.
The -i in belli is the ending for the genitive singular; bellum is 2nd declension. Casus is 4th declension and the nominative plural is casus. One of those usses is probably with a long u but I'll be dinged if I remember which one.
gee, thanks, faldage... now everything's clear as mud. er--- i was thinking that it must be a genitive declensionative pluralization nominalification. mmhmm. that was my next guess.
> now verbal war herein and elsewhere is a whole nother thang
My sentiments exactly, Anna! Some of the most rewarding and invigorating discussions are bellicose, at least to begin with. They are often started by knee-jerk reactions to ambiguous or incomplete information understood as a veritable war cry; this allows people to be frank :-)
BTW, in AWAD it said that casus belli was 'New Latin'. How new does that make it?
BY, What is casus dictum? It is not listed in my dictionary of foreign phrases. Was it an AWAD word that I missed? Maybe I could try to LIU it sometime.
It was just a jovial variation on casus belli, like calling you dictum fanaticus or something. You get my drift? Is it a real phrase? - Is now, eh. Is it at least grammatically correct? - I dunno.
You see Wordster, I was with 'casus dictum' trying to make the point, that often only when one becomes a tad hot under the collar about a certain topic, does it generally provoke people to speak plainly about it. A hostile start to a conversation often yields the most insightful discussions, in my eyes.
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