GLOSSARY ENTRY (DERIVED FROM QUESTION BELOW) | ||||||
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21:18 Jun 11, 2002 |
English to Latin translations [Non-PRO] Art/Literary | ||||
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| Selected response from: David Wigtil United States Local time: 12:25 | |||
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Summary of answers provided | ||||
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5 | inimicum conspectum cito caede. |
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4 | Vide nimicum et cito age |
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Vide nimicum et cito age Explanation: I have modified it a bit, just for the hell of it, I hope you don't mind. :-) Literally, it means: "See your enemy and act quickly". |
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inimicum conspectum cito caede. Explanation: USAGE: Use "inimicum conspectum cito caede" if speaking/writing to just one person (singular). Use "inimicum conspectum cito caedite" if more than one (plural). Mottoes are often poetic, so the alliteration of three C- words here adds a lilt. VOCABULARY: Rather literally this means, "Strike (down) the enemy quickly, once seen/spotted." "Inimicum" means a personal enemy ("hostem" would be an enemy army) -- no Latin word means "target" and "goal" simultaneously, as "target" itself can. If the Romans were going to "strike" something/someone, it must have been a hostile! The Latin phrase does not sound like your average New Year's Resolution. GRAMMAR: Latin typically rolls up multi-verb expressions into a single clause with one verb only, with the additional verb(s) rendered as participles, gerundives, or other verb-derived adjectives or nouns. These verbal "thingies" generally are the sense-focus in Latin, even if their exactly corresponding constructions in English seem to focus on the noun, instead. So the force of "inimicum conspectum" really is, "Spot the enemy!" --Loquamur Ph. D. in ancient Greek College professor of Greek and Latin -------------------------------------------------- Note added at 2002-06-12 14:31:53 (GMT) -------------------------------------------------- PRONUNCIATION: Classical Latin pronunciation (Cicero, Caesar, Vergil, and other first-century B.C. writers) would sound approcimately like this: \"inn-ih-MEE-koom kohn-SPECK-toom KITT-oh KY-deh\" (where KY- rhymes with \"my\" and \"bye\" and \"sigh\"). Medieval or ecclesiastical Latin pronunciation (roughly 6th-8th century time frame, and in church usage even today) would pronounce the phrase approximately as: \"een-ee-MEE-koom kohn-SPECK-toom CHITT-oh CHAY-day\" (where each \"ay\" rhymes with \"day\" and \"bay\" and \"sleigh\".) This loses the alliterative effect, of course, that I noted earlier. |
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