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Joined: Nov 2000
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
Plutarch, no. 1 is the corrected form of what WW was quoting, 2 & 3 what was asked for. 4 & 5 are quotes from Winnie Ille Pu, the Latin translation of the Milne classic. 4 is "You never can tell about elephants", 5 "You never can tell about footprints" (literally, "about elephants, footprints, it is always to be doubted").
The construction "disputandum, dubitandum" is called a gerund, q.v. in a dictionary or grammar.
I do not know about Latin roots in Russian, as I am not a Russian scholar; perhaps someone who is can respond to this. English has Latin words, phrases and other expressions which have been imported whole into the language, but not a direct connection. English was originally a Germanic language, expanded after the Norman Conquest with a vocabulary from Norman French, which, like other varieties of French, is a descendent of Latin.
The Romance Languages -- Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Rumanian, and a variety of lesser-known languages such as Romansch, Catalan, Provençal et al. and their dialects and variants -- do not just have Latin roots; they are the descendants of Latin. That means that sometime after the 3rd century or so, regional variants began creeping into the Latin spoken all over the (then dying) Roman Empire. The process accelerated after the fall of the Empire, so that what used to be Latin spoken in what used to be Gaul was starting to evolve into what became French, of either the Lange d'Ouil (northern) variety or the Langue d'Oc (southern) variety; the Latin of Hibernia slowly turned into Spanish, etc.
Exactly how and when all these languages morphed from Latin into the Romance family of languages is not very clearly known, as it took place during the Dark Ages, which are so called because there are so few records of it. In the case of Italian and French, the process was virtually complete by the early 14th century, since what Dante, Bocaccio, and Villon wrote was Italian and French (archaic still, with some more modernization to come but comprehensible to speakers of modern Italian or French, like Elizabethan English is to us).
Late edit. Dr. Bill very kindly pointed out to me in a p.m. that I wrote Hibernia above when I meant Iberia. Chalk that up not to ignorance of geography but to getting old. Eheu fugaces! as the old Romans used to say. These golden years are not what they are cracked up to be. Made another error the same day in another post, which I'll have to fix.
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 866
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 866 |
Speaking of critters falling into ponds....I believe that, whilst it doesn't get much publicity, a huge number of pet dogs drown each year in private swimming pools - an order of magnitude more than the chidren that do.
A 3 year old girl drowned in the family pool in Brisbane this week - very sad. Didn't find her for 24 hours, until the 3rd time they checked the pool (winter here so not in use)
stales
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Feb 2001
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 4,757 |
what sort of pit are the little creatures breaking away from?
Taking your q at face value rather than hippoperbole, the normal pattern of cattle grids here features a pit around 2' deep beneath the grid - without salvation, small critters can perish in this chasmic prison.
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Joined: Nov 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,439 |
5 "You never can tell about footprints" (literally, "about elephants, footprints, it is always to be doubted").
I thoght we settled that several months ago!
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
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Joined: Aug 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
Has anyone cross-threaded to hippo-chick? (a well dressed hippo chick being hippo-chic) 
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
Hippo-chic--hey, that's getting pretty close to Hyla-chic. Hiya, Hyla! You are chic, but not a chick, non?
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Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
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Joined: Aug 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 2,605 |
To Dub-Dub (ROTFL) -- Aquadon't! Laughing so hard my sides are aquing!
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