Okay, since no one else has yet pointed out the classical reference here, I’ll go ahead and do it. Scylla and Charybdis were actually characters in Homer’s Odyssey, two of the many dangers he had to face on his twenty-year journey home. (This is referenced in Scylla’s profile, as well, although he currently claims to be waylaying “tavelers” [sic]).
Scylla, the classical figure, was a ferocious six-headed monster, and female at that. She was large and fearsome enough to scarf up one member of Odysseus’s crew in each mouth as they passed by, skirting close to avoid Charybdis.
Charybdis, also depicted as being female, was on the other side of the Strait of Messina from Scylla, no more than a bowshot away. Thrice daily she sucked down all the water in a giant swirling maelstrom, then spewed it back up again. Odysseus’s crew was well-advised by Circe to sail closer to Scylla’s side, and sacrifice a few members rather than lose the whole vessel.
So, clearly, a rock and a hard place got nuthin’ on these two bitches.
Gaudere’s Law strikes again. In making a post correcting noun case, I make an error in noun case. That should obviously be the dative, “Ranae Masticato”, not the accusative. And no, I’m not going to even try to translate “Gaudere’s Law”… How the heck do you decline a verb?
To Crunchy: Case tells you what role a noun is playing in a sentence. In English, this is indicated by word order, while in Latin, it’s done with word endings. The subject is put into the nominative case, so if I wanted to say you were doing something, I’d refer to you as “Rana” (“Frog”). Vocative is what I’d use to address you, and is almost always the same ending as nominative, so “O Rana” would translate to “Hey, Frog!”. Accusative means that something is being done to you, and would be “Ranam”. Dative means that something else is the direct object (the mop, in my quote above), but I’m doing it to or for you (“ranae”). Undoubtedly, you already knew some of this from the centurions’s lecture.
latin is a confusing language. im so happy i dont have to tkae it next year (Cougarfang, we dont, right?) threadspotting- i noticed, and i’m stuck with Cougarfang calling me up on a exam day to tell me to go check. Although it is sort of cool…
ok- this is MY favorite latin phrase:Bene qui latuit, bene vixit.
