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There is a Latin phrase used in law that roughly translates into "you take the victim as he is." It pertains to situations such as when one person punches another in the face, not knowing that he has a brain aneurysm. The punch causes the rupture of the aneurysm, and the victim dies. The agressor pleads that it was an accident but is still charged with manslaughter on the grounds that he "takes the victim as he is." i.e. He is responsible for the death, and since he couldn't have known whether or not a single blow would kill the man, he should have refrained from hitting him in the first place.
Anyway, I can't think of the Latin legal term and I'm hoping someone here knows.
Also, what's the Latin medical term for a "sense of impending doom" such as experienced by a person in the throes of a heart atatck?
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Dear Alex: I haven't ever heard a term for a sense of impending doom,, and could not find one.
so I coined one; What would you say to :"aura mortis"?
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I can't say I've ever come across a Latin equivalent for the "Sense of Impending Doom" either, though it's always been on the paradigm list for heart attack, along with the "crushing chest pain" (sometimes called "elephant sitting on my chest"), drenching sweats, nausea, and radiation to left shoulder and/or arm.
It seems anomalous, since all things medical seem to have a Latin name (unless it's a Greek one) from before we thought we had an understanding of what was going on . All we could do was describe it and give it a fancy name.
Conceivably that part of the syndrome wasn't recognized until the Twentieth Century, when we had stopped glorifying Classical language so. Perhaps also it became more prevalent, as people were now indulging in industrial-strength smoking and overeating to the point of getting high cholesterols and diabetes on such a large scale for the first time. [All diseases of affluence and longevity (among other causes, of course) unfortunately...]
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Pooh-Bah
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I found the "impending doom" term I was looking for in my ACLS manual: angor animi. I'm not sure what the literal translation of that is and would love to hear it.
Another interesting thing about heart attacks: as far as I know, the only gesture recognized as a clinical sign is the clenched fist over the sternum that people tend to display while describing their chest pain, which is named Levine's sign. If you ever enjoyed perusing a dictionary, pick up a medical dictionary and look up "sign" and you'll find all sorts of interesting entries.
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Pooh-Bah
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From http://members.tripod.com/~S_Larson/latindict/LatinDict_A.html (beware of pop up windows), angor -oris, m. compression of the throat, suffocation; of the mind, distress, anguish, trouble. animus -i, m. the spiritual or rational principle of life in man. More specifically: (1) the seat of feeling, the heart; 'animi causa', for pleasure; loc. (or genit.) 'animi', at heart. (2) character, disposition; as a trait of character (esp. in plur.) courage, spirit, vivacity; also pride, arrogance. (3) the seat of the will, intention: 'habeo in animo', I am resolved. (4) the seat of thought, intellect, mind, memory, consciousness. It seems like the expresion is also a sort of play on words, essentially meaning "distress for your life" as well as "anguish at heart."
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Pooh-Bah
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Well, how about abolesco fucit?
- Pfranz
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Dear Capfka: abolesco fucit????? I found a German Latin glossary that says "abolesco" =
verschwinden, = disappear. But I could find nothing for "fucit" except as variant of "f-wird"
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I agree, Dr. Bill. I show fuco, -are, -avi, -atum, to dye red.
Closest to fucit would be 3rd person singular present indicative fucat or 3rd person singular present subjunctive fucet. The onliest f-word I know would be futuit in the 3rd person sing. present indic. Mebbe he meant to say, "I'm outta here if he's going to paint the town red."
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Pooh-Bah
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Damn, I left the "k" out, didn't I? Fuckit, Fuckit, Fuckit!
- Pfranz
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Bill, find yourself a better dictionary, preferably Latin-English.
Abolesco means "to die" in the sense of "to fade away" or "to decay", "to cease to exist" or "to become extinct". That being the case, it would seem that it only means "to disappear" in a transitive sense alluding back to the outcome of the actual meaning of "death".
- Pfranz
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Dear Capfka: for the hell of it, I searched for "abolescent" and found a whole buch of typos that
should have been "adolescent". Some were funny. But I ti get one hit:
Magnae nationes stoicae crescent, epicureae abolescent! (Great nations rise stoic
and die epicurean!) ... And ancient Rome is a fine example. ...
PS: I doubt that "epicurean" really fitted the last of the Romans. "Effete" might be closer.
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I would think that the sense to die was the derived meaning and disappearing or fading away was the primary meaning. It seems to be related to aboleo, abolish. Aboleo might derive from oleo, smell, with the ab- being the inseparable prefix denoting separation. Not quite sure yet what that means but it sounds like it should be significant.
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Aboleo sounds and looks as though it should be related to "abolish," which is pretty close to the fading-away/dying meaning first proposed.
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I would think that the sense to die was the derived meaning and disappearing or fading away was the primary meaning. It seems to be related to aboleo, abolish. Aboleo might derive from oleo, smell, with the ab- being the inseparable prefix denoting separation. Not quite sure yet what that means but it sounds like it should be significant.
It seems to me that as one's separation from a smell increases, so that smell fades or dies away.
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abolish v. [a. Fr. aboliss-, lengthened stem of abolir:L. abolesc-ere, inceptive of abole-re to grow out of use, and transf. to destroy, do away with; f. ab off, away + obs. ole-re to grow. In Eng. as in French always trans.]
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Pooh-Bah
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Forget what English dictionaries have to say about Latin words, that way lies madness. Here are the basic definitions discussed above:
aboleo -ere -evi -itum [to destroy , do away with].
abolesco -ere -evi [to perish].
abolitio -onis f. [removing , annulling, abolition].
Like, but not like. As someone or other said.
- Pfranz
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Forget what English dictionaries have to say about Latin words
I've gotten all my information, so far, from Latin dictionaries
Well Latin-English dictionaries
Aboleo sounds and looks as though it should be related to "abolish,"
What's Latin for "chopped liver"?
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I rejoice that we are starting the New Year off right by talking about words.
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enthusiast
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The agressor pleads that it was an accident but is still charged with manslaughter on the grounds that he "takes the victim as he is."
I can't think of a Latin phrase, but believe that we learned this as the "thin-skull" doctrine.
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...but still no Latin equivalent expression: http://www.nancyralph.com/Dilemma.htm
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Dear wofaholicodoc: A splendid link. Wish I had been clever enough to find it. Bill
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Faldo, you are quite right in that aboleo, evi, itum means, among other things, "to abolish", and is the root of the English word. However, abolesco, while it may have a common root within Latin, has a much different meaning in Latin. While I haven't had time to look for definitive sources, its dictionary definition, and the context in which I've seen it used, means "to die" as in "to perish, to be extinguished, to fade away". Aboleo means "to do away with, to abolish". Not really the same thing at all, old chum!
I was actually seriously trying to come up with a word to describe the experience that whichever of our doctors who kicked this thread off was talking about. Morior doesn't get it. Obolesco seems to have the implied meaning of "I'm dying/fading away and I know it and am contemplating my end" rather than the blunter and more active "I know I will die now, probably because the emperor is about to give me the thumbs down" which morior implies.
Fuckit is, and remains, self-explanatory, if not Latin!
And "chopped liver" is jecur abscidat - "the liver is chopped". Couldn't find an adjectival form, unfortunately. Shame the Romans didn't ask the US for advice on permissible colloquialisms!
- Pfranz
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I asked my yet-to-be-barred lawyer friend who has an eidetic memory if there was a latinate legalism that conveyed the sense of "you take the victim as you find him". He said "No!". In court he said he would argue by citing a "you take the victim as you find him" precedent. So let's not aide and abet these obfuscating ambulance chasers who will latinate at the drop of the latin word for hat, by a search for substitute latin phrasing, even though the plain speaking term "thin skull" sounds stupid and silly and dumb. 
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Milum:
I am certain that very few Latin phrases are being taught in law school now, but you will find that there are literally tens of thousands of Latin phrases in an older edition of a good law dictionary. When the question came up I was sure in my mind that there is such a phrase; finding it is something else.
Essentially these are catchphrases for important points of law that have been well settled or are names of particular writs that were at one time important in law. An example of the former is the point in law that prior court decisions are to be given great deference in applying law to a current case. Rather than saying all that, an attorney needed to merely say "the doctrine of stare decisis (STAR-aye duh-See-sis), which means literally to let the decision stand.
A few things like that are still in use, like writ of habeus corpus and a plea of nolo contendere, but the rest are pretty much as dead as Latin. Still standing though are most of the legal principles behind them.
TEd
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TEd,
Of course I agree that the use of latin in law and science serves to condense and exact compound ideas, but Like all words, specialized jargon has multi-functions. Do you believe that there exists in "law" a concept that could not be understood, given time, by the average american? Of course you don't. Do you believe that a profession that is dependent on the ignorance of their clients for the continuation of their over-sized group has a vested interest in making their actions and wordings clear to all? Of course you don't.
But then you do believe that all state and federal laws that were made in the second half of the Twentieth Century in the States were made by lawyers. Don't you.
We are not a smart people. We trust lawyers. Lawyers don't.
Milum.
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Well I emailed my question to the medical examiner who I thought had originally taught me the phrase. He was stumped and could only offer "eggshell defense," so I must've been entirely mistaken. There is no Latin legal phrase then as far as I know for "You take the victim as you find her."
Mea culpa.
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Pooh-Bah
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So ... ipso facto - sic!
- Pfranz
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There is no Latin legal phrase then as far as I know for "You take the victim as you find her."
I think you are right, AW. But the flip side of your maxim, i.e. - the one which holds that anyone who consents to the risk of injury, for example, a participant in a contact sport, like hockey, forfeits the right to sue for an injury while engaged in that consensual activity, is so widely recognized in legal circles that it can be communicated in a single word: volens.
Sagacity of such exemplary brevity gives us reason not merely to defend, but to celebrate, latin maxims in legal education today.
Latin maxims allow us to say more with less - and who can argue that that is not a good thing? Res ipsa loquitur.
"Volenti non fit injuria" is itself an elegant adumbration of a legal principle so soundly stated twenty-five hundred years ago that it is not improved by translation into any other language, even english, today.
"Volenti non fit injuria" is succinct. But, volens is encyclopedic in its brevity. Where can you find such eloquence elsewhere, in any language, in a single 5 letter word? QED
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volens: a forfeit of the right to sue if one willingly chooses to engage in a dangerous activity that leads to injury relative to that danger.Sagacity of such exemplary brevity gives us reason not merely to defend, but to celebrate, latin maxims in legal education today . ~ Plutarch Now Plutarch we do want to be clear. Before we celebrate let's admit that the term was not a "latin" maxim as you imply. The word was imbued with this meaning from a narrower latin base by legal educators who needed a brief term that had class and weight. Me? I think the derived and contrived meaning is great! But I bet you can't say it without puffing out your chest. 
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At what point does the concept of volens become superceded by clearly criminal activity on a playing field? For example, if someone is shot with pistol on a basketball court, that is wildly beyond the limits of volens. But often violence breaks out in sporting events and there seems to be little legal consequence, such as when Dennis Rodman attacked an NBA referee. If I had been in the ref's position I would definitely have pressed charges for assault, but as far as I know all he [Rodman] suffered was a fine from the league.
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let's admit that the term was not a "latin" maxim as you imply
If volens isn't an abbreviation of the latin maxim "volenti non fit injuria" [which itself is a handy abbreviation], then it's news to me.
Personally, I have never been much interested in the precise derivation of these abbreviations. They are handy and they work in the company of lawyers and judges and that has always been enough for me. I confess I'm the kind of person who drives a car to work everyday but I've never been curious about what's going on beneath the hood [unless I see smoke].
Nevertheless, your explanation of the actual derivation of "volens" is welcome. I certainly wouldn't want anyone to think "volens" is a latin maxim if it is merely derived from, or inspired by, a latin maxim.
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At what point does the concept of volens become superceded by clearly criminal activity on a playing field?We are indebted to Milum for the answer, AW. The key part of the definition he has provided are the words injury relative to that danger. One consents to an injury which one can reasonably foresee. Some 'rough stuff' is reasonably foreseeable within the rules of the game, but gratuitous or excessive use of force against a player, or attacking anyone who is not a player, is not within the compass of the "volens" maxim. This is true even if "volens" is derived from, and is not itself a latin maxim, as Milum has further elucidated. A ref is not a player and he has not consented to the risk of injury, AW [at least injury from wilful attack] so I, for one, agree with you. Attacking a ref is a criminal act. On the other hand, attacking a poster in this forum who wields a term like "volens" with precision, but without understanding its precise historical derivation, is just part of the game. [And I hope it has been as entertaining for others as it has been for me and Milum. ]
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And I hope it has been as entertaining for others as it has been for me and Milum.Hear hear, Mister Plutarch. But please remind me watch out in the future. A man who gives credit to others as graciously as you do is a very confident man, and confident men bear watching. Just (mostly) kidding, Milum.
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