You know you're a Latin junkie when...

B

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I found it a bit disturbing that faster, stronger, smarter and even humble (despite its spelling) are spondaic and then suddenly the line ends in 2 short syllables.

I think it would have been quite witty if they had found a different word than "humble" (though I don't know which word that should be) which scans as -v ... because then, the idea of humbleness would somehow be mirrored in the decrease of syllable length.
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
I hate how it's a whole set of adjectives and then the last one is a noun
Yes, me too. Well, what I hate isn't so much the fact that it's a noun, but the fact that it doesn't really work within the "to be" construction. What the author really meant was that you should have less ego, not be less ego, and yet "less ego" is illogically put there at the end of the adjective list depending on "to be".
 
B

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Guest

I think there is a parallel universe where I would have made the case that the author probably didn't know a lot of Latin and just tried to be pretentious with the few words he or she happened to have come across in life.

But your arguments are just too convincing. I'm not even kidding, I really think so.
 

Hadassah Branch

Active Member

Location:
In A Random Forest
When you read through words like vociferate, concupiscent and commensurate and drop them in everyday speech like Cloudy with a Chance of Latin.
 

Callaina

Feles Curiosissima

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Location:
Canada
You know how you sometimes do that thing where you're staring at, say, a concrete wall or a heap of fallen leaves or a cloud formation and you "see" a word "written" in it, just for a moment?

So yeah, you know you're a Latin junkie when you're staring at a boulder, and think you see sine on its surface (I did this yesterday when I was out on a hike).
 
B

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You know how you sometimes do that thing where you're staring at, say, a concrete wall or a heap of fallen leaves or a cloud formation and you "see" a word "written" in it, just for a moment?

So yeah, you know you're a Latin junkie when you're staring at a boulder, and think you see sine on its surface (I did this yesterday when I was out on a hike).

Did that happen shortly before you fell into that thornbush? :p
 

Rudis

Member

You finish a giant designer burger and shout "Veni, vidi, vici!"
 

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Tironis

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Anglia
When you keep reading the title "De wonderbare maagd Sinte Amelberga" as "On/of the wonderful maiden Saint Amelia" even though you know (albeit hardly knowing any Dutch) that this "de" is actually a definite article.
The Dutch wonderbare, apart from wonderful, could also mean enchanting, remarkable or marvellous.
 
B

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Guest

When you keep reading the title "De wonderbare maagd Sinte Amelberga" as "On/of the wonderful maiden Saint Amelia" even though you know (albeit hardly knowing any Dutch) that this "de" is actually a definite article.
And wonderbare looks like a neuter singular!
 
 

cinefactus

Censor

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Location:
litore aureo
You watch a movie and break out laughing when you hear someone with the name Nate
 

john abshire

Well-Known Member

  • Patronus

Also, though I know that "whom" is almost out of use in common English speech and that it is regarded as perfectly correct to say, for example, "the man who I saw yesterday", most of the time I can't help using "whom" because otherwise I'd feel like I was saying vir qui heri vidi... And it feels wrong! :D
I am a beginner in Latin, (and also a beginner in English grammar, as it has turned out). Before, I never thought much about who vs whom. Now, when I hear the word “whom”, I think of relative pronouns, antecedents, and quem, quam, quod. [however, I do remember “whom” being significant to Katherine Hepburn in “rooster cogburn”.]
 

Callaina

Feles Curiosissima

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Location:
Canada
He was very upset that the government was (he said) planning to assign everyone a number
You know you're a Latin junkie when immediately after writing the above you think, "If only I were writing in Latin*, I wouldn't have to include that annoying parenthetical "he said" in there..."

*Or German, if I remember correctly.
 
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