i haven’t yet found a site like babelfish to translate latin & i found a little brass plaque w/ something engraved on it that i’ve been trying to figure out for some time. i found it buried in the dirt where i was trying to plant some shrubs. it’s about 1.5x3 w/ little holes in the corners & i’m guessing it was attached to maybe a framed picture or a windbell.
anyway it says:
si non convivare noli tintarre
i’ve gotten something like ‘if you don’t feast, don’t ring the bell’. does that make sense? i never took latin & am only guessing from what i’ve been able to find.
any one else want to guess?
also, anyone know of a latin translation site that does a straight translation instead of just giving a glossary of words? i don’t know how to conjugate in latin, so a glossary isn’t much help to me. quite a few of you have latin quotes in your sig line & i do keep on wondering what they mean.
Maybe that’ll help, but from what I can tell, your translation is pretty accurate. Although its probably something closer to “If there’s no feast, don’t ring the bell”
voltaire is probably pretty close. The thing is, many companies that make items with “cute” latin sayings use an approximate translation of the latin, so maybe the company was telling people it meant “if you’re not a friend, don’t ring” or whatever.
As an example, I’ve read that on the front door of one of his mansions, playboy extraordinaire Hugh Hefner has the latin phrase “si non oscillas, non tintinarre” which is meant to signify “if you don’t swing, don’t ring.”
i’ve had this little plaque for several yrs but i thought this morning that maybe it was actually nailed up near the doorbell as i did find it buried in the dirt about 15’ from the front door. in fact, i think i’ll put it up next to my current front door. i rather like the sentiment, sort of a very polite way of saying ‘no solicitors’.
of course, no one would be able to understand it. except me, now. but if it is an iffy translation, it could as easily be stated ‘if you’re not here to be convivial, don’t bother to ring the bell.’ well, who else but a salesman or a guest would be ringing the bell? if you’re not an invited guest, you are the other kind. not a direct extrapolation surely, but i now don’t imagine it’s too far off.
unless you are thinking of the english solicitor, an attorney?
Special, you’ve said nothing about the history of the house – it wasn’t by chance a bordello of some sort in the past, was it? I ‘interpret’ the saying as “If you ain’t here to party, don’t ring!”
lordy, i hope it wasn’t a bordello. if so, it was pretty high class, heidi fliess type of stuff. it was in the little interior courtyard of my ex’s (atty & ex judge) house on camelback mountain in phoenix. rather expensive real estate for a red light district!
Close to 40 years since my last Latin Class.
I think Special is real close to the meaning. From the same root we get “convivial” a feast is a place for conviviality as much as food. " if you are not here for friendship, don’t ring"
On the other hand ,it has not been that long since I was in Phoenix.There was this ritzy place up in the hills where there was some soliciting going on.Seems they had an “in” with the local magistrates and…No wait that was in Kentucky.
“Pardon me while I have a strange interlude.”-Marx
I believe, suh, thet you ahr refurrin’ tuh Pearl’s, in Bowling Green, which is nowheah neah the mountains.
We-uns miss Pearl. Too many people have fuhgotten her, ‘n’ make careless comparisons 'twixt prostitutes ‘n’ politicians. In mah experience, the ‘hos ha’ bin much mo 'onrable. . .
If you knew what I know, everything would make sense; and if it didn’t, you’d know enough to know not to worry about it – The God of Somebody Else
i do thank you all. i’m going to print this out so i remember exactly (is that possible w/ latin?) what this means when that latin solicitor comes to the door.
When my niece and her husband had a new house built, they attached a bronze plaque by the front door saying “Coram Deo 1995.”
“Lemme see,” I said,“Coram has to do with plastic shoes, and Deo is about bananas, right?” My charming niece patiently explained it means, “In the sight of God.”
