Unfortunately, I don’t know a latin phrase for that. Cretinous maximus?
Here’s one that bugs me. I spend much time outdoors, often with folks of the same interests. And since there are a lot of local get togethers here or there or folks visiting from some other region there are a fair number of people that rotate through my hobbies over a period of time. Every now and then I get one of these folks.
Thats not a cardinal, its a redis birdis. That’s not a redwood, its a bigus treeus. And so on and son. Everything pointed out or identified must have its latin name mentioned.
Yeah, its kind of nice you know the latin name for this or that. But to me, unless you can tell me something special or interesting about that particular bird (like it only eats orange blossums) or that tree (its the only one pollinated by bats), I am not particulary impressed you know a fancy name for something I can identify just as well. To be honest, unless you are in the habit of writing stuff that requires you to use the latin names it seems to me to be a waste of mental energy.
Whenever I use a Latin tag I 'm always careful to provide a translation as I realize that to have had a classical education is unusual these days. (I was schooled in England in the 50s when Latin was a basic part of the syllabus for the upper steams in grammar schools.)
There really are times when nothing will say it as perfectly or as succinctly as a piece of Latin.
I took a class in Latin in university mainly because I majored in history and I was especially fascinated by ancient Roman history. My brother used to tease me about taking the course by asking me if I was planning to move to Latina.
These are all phrases that are part of the English language. Anyone who can’t understand them, or a large list of similar borrowed words and phrases from Latin and many other languages, is not fluent in English.
If I had to guess, I’d say the OP is talking about dropping in a latinism when there is a commonly used and perfectly good word or phrase that could be used instead. Whenever I see somebody use “mea culpa”, my first thoughts are usually along the lines of "why did he say that? Doesn’t he know about the phrases I’m sorry or my mistake? Yes, those words that, when some character in a movie says them, all the other characters look around at each other and say “who *says[i/] that”?
I don’t think the OP is talking about loan words or abbreviations that have become so much a part of the language that a majority of people probably don’t even realize that they were, at one point in the distant past, not part of our routine vocabulary at all.
But rarely will most people understand what you’ve said, unless you’re talking to your old college roommate.
I suppose you’re right, I must surely be a huge hypocrite for using ‘etc’ and other common Latin phrases.
I’m thinking more of less known things like, “Ave Atque Vale” (Please, please, please can the poster not take this personally, just the easiest example to access!).This is more the kind of Latin usage I was referring to. It seems to scream something untoward, about the speaker, to me.
Yeah, I guess some, perhaps many, people do know this phrase.
And I accept that it is, at some level, hair splitting or nit picking. (Also a little douchie.)This is more the kind of Latin usage I was referring to. It seems to scream something untoward about the speaker to me.
I guess it’s just me.
Meh, you showed that a single example intentionally written with a lot of latin in it could have been written without the latin. This has no relation to your claim that latin phrases “almost never actually [are] the best way to communicate anything.”
What poster? Where?
This is the Pit man. The PIT!
Here it is.
It’s a little pompous–however, I think it’s meant to be self-deprecatingly fake-pompous. I could be wrong, though.
I’m wrestling with myself over whether I should participate in this thread. My primary concern is that it’s a bit infra dig.
I’m not sure that he can carpe anything at all. If he could we’d probably call him “wrists.”
Sic transit gloria mundi.
Translation: Gloria threw up on the bus on Monday
My torts professor opined that res ipsa loquitur was latin for “I’m going to take a rather logical and straight forward application of the common law and make it sound more complicated than it really is.”
French from Italian doccia ‘conduit pipe,’ from docciare ‘pour by drops,’ based on Latin ductus ‘leading’ (see duct).
I’d be willing to consider not using Latin, but I’m going to need some quid pro quo.
Eh, I can see elbow’s point. Etc, i.e., e.g. et al, and others of that ilk are pretty standard bits of english nomenclature and even if you don’t know the actual latin, usually you can figure it out from context or whatever. But sometimes you meet that one guy who thinks every point is better underscored with a quote from Catullus minus an appropriate translation and I can’t just copy and paste into google because I’m busy lighting the fucker on fire.
The Latin doesn’t bother me. It’s the French I fucking Hate.