My wife and I were talking about having a family motto (in Latin, of course). Her very first suggestion was my all-purpose excuse for when things don’t go quite right:
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
I’ve tried some on-line translation tools and they don’t really seem to capture the sense or intention of the phrase. I realize that a literal translation would probably not be appropriate and likely wouldn’t even make sense.
Maybe it would be easier to translate “appeared a good idea in the past” or something similar.
I’m open to suggestions and your help. My wife is sick of hearing the phrase in English, so it would be nice to give her a break.
That totally takes the cake style-wise. It sounds Latin, it sounds profound, and it’s short. All the really good Latin mottos are short & punchy. Lots of the actual Latin language is as wordy & syllable-heavy as modern Spanish. Pretty to listen to; lousy for mottos.
Never mind my word for word translation, Bob nailed it with the concise Bonam ideam tunc. That one hits the sweet spot. Bob, what’s with the use of accusative case to imply further back in time?