Mundane and Pointless Stuff I Must Ask General Questions About Dept.:
What is this bit about Etruscans and pandas, and how they deserve death? Usually I can figure these things out: (“It’s a catchphrase from Sparta”; “It’s a play on a silly remark by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs”; etc.) But this time… I don’t get it. I don’t even get a clue wher I can find it. Somebody want to fill me in?
I’ve only seen anything of the short in Skald the Rhymer’s sigline, so the answer is probably just that Skald likes a bit of surrealism. It wouldn’t be his style to play off of some existing pop-culture phenomenon.
The only relevant results on Google are the top two, and they both point to posts Skald the Rhymer made here. I think that’s your answer. I think it’s Etruscans because they don’t exist anymore and pandas because they shouldn’t (natural selection is obviously working against them even without humans degrading their habitat).
I don’t know the answer to your question but two of the first ten Google hits for “etruscans pandas” are SDMB threads. :eek:
“Those Darn Etruscans” for $200, Alex.
To the extent that there’s anything to it (and I’m not claiming there is), it could be a (possibly unconscious) riff on Cato’s famous phrase about destroying Carthage, which he used as kind of a pre-internet sigline, appending it to every speech whether the subject was Carthage or not. (Carthago delenda est - Wikipedia).
So we should start saying, “Skaldo delenda est”?
Not unless Skald has suddently changed genders. I think it’s “**Skald **delendus est” or possibly “Scaldus delendus est.”
Note: The foregoing does not indicate a threat, real or implied, to any Rhymers.
Yes, you’re right: you have to decline Skald correctly: it would be “Scaldus delendus est.”
This would depend on what the Latin nominative for “Skald” is. If it’s imported as second declension, it would be “Skaldus” (genitive “Skaldi”). However, it could well be taken as an undeclined noun (“Skald”) or as a third declension noun (“Skaldo”, genitive “Skaldinis”; while most such nouns are feminine, the name of a male person would be treated as masculine)
BTW, there is an extinct species of bear called the “Etruscan bear” (Ursus etruscus), which at least puts it into the same family with pandas.
Or maybe he doesn’t like police cars.
Alternately, you could try to translate “Skald” into Latin. The skalds were Norse poets, so one might say “Poeta delendus est” (while first-declension words are usually feminine, “poeta” is one of the few exceptions). Latin doesn’t really have the concept of rhyme, though, so I’m not sure one could translate “Rhymer”.
Borrowing a Greek term, Skald factor homoteleutorum delendus est?
No need: Scaldus was already used in Medieval Latin at least once (example)
You callin’ our **Skald **a fag ?
(it’s homeoteleuton)
…which would have what for a genitive plural?
… you tellin’ me Greek declensions mess with the root of words on top of the suffix ? 
Actually it’s [ὁμοιοτέλευτον](http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Do(moiote%2Fleutos) -> homoeoteleuton…my transliteration isn’t what it used to be:)