Just let go

marian

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Hello all,

I'm trying to find a "not-internet-translator-retarded" translation for a short phrase. I did couple of searches but I figure some people who actually know latin are better than a translator engine, duh..

The sentence is "just let go", with the meaning of "calm and full of understanding" acceptance - yet not in a defeatism way, if i'm making any kind of sense :)

I had some basic latin classes before highschool (i'm romanian), but that was more than 15 years ago and I wasn't very good at it neither :)

The online engine returned stuff like "directus amitto" or "simplex amitto", are they any good?

Thanks in advance for any input!
 

miroslaw

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Hello marian,

Do You mean
let go as - let (it) go - forget about it (and move on)
or
let go as release someone or somethong ?

let go as forget / leave somethingsomeone) behind :
singular : hoc oblivisce
hoc dimitte (et progrede) - just let (it) go (and move on)
plural : hoc obliviscete /
hoc dimittete et progredete

Please wait for other members to reply.
 

marian

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Thanks for your reply, miro

I'll try to be a bit more clear, although I might look like kinda dorky/dumb in the end :)

For those who saw Fight Club, there's that scene in the car, right before the main character (both of his egos :D) crash the car, thus having a "near life experience". Moments before the crash Ed Norton's character was trying to not let the car crash, at which point Brad Pitt's character says something along these lines - "Just look at you! Look at you, you're pathetic! Stop trying to control everything and just let go! LET [short pause] GO!" That's the "just let go" I'm looking for.

Now, to make myself look even dorkier, I'll tell you this text is for a tattoo I imagined and I'm planning to get. The tattoo itself (or my mental picture of it) shows a guy plunging into the sea from a high rock/cliff. Not with a suicidal frame of mind (lol), but just gracefully diving in and experiencing that single moment of weightlessness and not giving a fck (in a very non-confrontational state of mind) about anything else.

I hope that's more clear now :)
 

helliih

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I would be also interested in this one! Can you use verb like "mitto" or is it absolutely incorrect?
 

socratidion

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My instinct is that any verb we choose in Latin will be unclear (i.e. have many possible meanings) unless we specify what we're letting go of. In the English you are letting go of the means of control. In Latin, the means of control can be expressed concretely as 'reins' (habenae/lora/frena) or a rudder (clavus/gubernaculum); or more abstractly, 'control' is moderamen or regimen.

Personally, I'd go for something like
lora remitte
frena remitte

both of which mean 'slacken the reins', and sound like the sort of thing you can find in Ovid -- thinking particularly of the Phaethon episode in Met. 2 where a young boy chaotically loses control of his father's chariot. In that story, it's a real chariot, but I'm sure I've seen this sort of phrase used figuratively elsewhere, usually to denote acceleration, giving your metaphorical horses 'free rein'.

I haven't found anything spectacular for the rudder version. The rudder pops up a lot as a metaphor for government, where one generally 'holds on tight and keeps the rudder straight'. The late Christian author Arnobius used the phrase 'clavum abicere' to mean 'letting go of the rudder' i.e. just let things go to hell (?), but out of context it's ambiguous (Arnobius uses it at the end of a long sentence which makes it pretty clear what he means). Something like 'moderamen remitte' (slacken control) would be clear enough, but it sounds a mite ponderous.

So, yes, I still prefer the 'reins' metaphor. Maybe we could go one step further and try
lora abice
frena abice

which would mean 'chuck away the reins'.
 

Manus Correctrix

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I’d like to see lora/frena demitte.
 

socratidion

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Yes, demitte would be good: 'drop the reins'.

Come to think of it, would the simple 'mitte' be OK? 'mitte habenas' would pretty clearly mean 'get rid of/stop using the reins', wouldn't it? ('mitte rudentem' = let go of the rope, in Plautus)
 
 

Matthaeus

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It would work.
To let go, let loose, to quit, release, dismiss: mitte rudentem, sceleste, Tr. Mittam, Plaut. Rud. 4, 3, 77: unde mittuntur equi, nunc dicuntur carceres, Varr. L. L. 5, § 153 Müll.: quadrijuges aequo carcere misit equos, Ov. Am. 3, 2, 66; Plaut. Poen. prol. 100: mittin' me intro? will you let me go in? id. Truc. 4, 2, 43: cutem, to let go, quit, Hor. A. P. 476: mitte me, let me alone, Ter. Ad. 5, 2, 5: nos missos face, id. And. 5, 1, 14: missum fieri, to be let loose, set at liberty, Nep. Eum. 11: eum missum feci,
 

helliih

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Thank you guys! But I still have another question concerning the "let go"-verb, though in different context - when letting go of things in past, can you also use the verb "dimitte"?
I found a translation for "let it go and move on" as a "Dimitte et progredere" - is it correct? Can you use it without the di- in the front? I think I'm a bit pain in the ass with my "mitte" here, but it's just that it seems to translate very differently, depending on the language that you use...
 

Manus Correctrix

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helliih dixit:
when letting go of things in past, can you also use the verb "dimitte"?
So, you mean letting go of a memory rather than letting go of the reins. This seems to mean ‘forget’, essentially.
 

socratidion

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'dimittere' is one of several words that could mean 'give up something' or 'abandon something'. But something makes me awfully queasy when I see 'dimitte' and I'm told it's supposed to mean 'let go' in a little motto like 'dimitte et progredere'. I want to know what it is that I'm supposed to 'dismiss/forsake/abandon/give up/break up/send around the place', before I can get any sense of which of those meanings of 'dimitte' you intend. It needs an object of some kind. Give up -- the past? Your memory?

The situation is different in English, where we have decades of culture -- films, TV, novels, magazines - attuning us to the meaning of 'just let go'. We know it doesn't really have an object, because to state a precise object is almost missing the point. Let go of what? Let go of the need to hold on... But unless you've got that kind of cultural background to lean on -- and you don't in Latin -- you'll make as much sense as if you said 'just dismiss', or 'just forsake'.
 

helliih

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just to clear things up, we are talking about two different "letting goes" here now :)
so the one that marian asked originally makes sense to me, "drop the reins", and what I asked next was "let go" as letting go of the past, putting things behind you kind of let go, if you understand :D
 
 

Matthaeus

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Right, forgetting, in other words. :roll:
that would be
OBLIVISCERE!
 
 

Matthaeus

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How different is it from forgiving/forgetting and getting on with your life?
 

Imber Ranae

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Matthaeus dixit:
How different is it from forgiving/forgetting and getting on with your life?
I guess she means disregarding something that's passed as opposed to suffering amnesia. Obliviscere can mean either, I think.

Maybe depone ex memoria would better reflect the English?
 
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