In the spirit of being utterly unbearable, I have decided that all my posts need to end with a Latin tag. The one I have chosen is the PM’s motto from the glorious “Yes, Minister”:
In defeat, malice; in victory, revenge.
That would look great in Latin: is anyone able to take a crack at it?
Ever see the escutcheon of the Sons of the Desert? 
From a Yes Minister fan and Latin dude:
*DETRIMENTO•MALIGNITAS•VICTORIA•ULTIO
This is how it would appear on a Roman inscription with the usual • between the words.
Romans would understand the O on the end of DETRIMENTO and the A on the end of VICTORIA to be equivalent to putting in in front of the words. (The A in this case is pronounced as a long vowel. A short A would make the the in meaning disappear.)
Weird though it may seem, the Romans would use the word endings to judge DETRIMENTO and VICTORIA to be the same grammatical part of speech (the ablative case) and MALIGNITAS and ULTIO likewise (but in the nominative case). If you use a short A on VICTORIA in speaking, then that too would change from the ablative case to the nominative and alter the meaning to In defeat malice victory revenge, which does not make sense.
*
I have a severe case of hating all I work with so I’ll be putting DETRIMENTO•MALIGNITAS•VICTORIA•ULTIO on my whiteboard today.
Sign my posts with it? That’s so awesome I want it tattooed on my bicep! Fantastic, many thanks.
DETRIMENTO MALIGNITAS; VICTORIA ULTIO
You’re not actually going to put that after every post are you? “Regards,” is bad enough…
But if you are going to, I think you should keep the circled. Spaces and semicolon just looks stupid.
No, I was being facetious in the OP. I certainly wouldn’t want to clothe myself in borrowed pretension.
Ka kite ano,
SJ
Now I want it tattooed. Awrrrrrrrrsome.
Hm, in principle, I agree. But detrimentum means “damage” (detrimentum incendii,e.g., means “fire damage”) or “loss” but not exactly “defeat”, which is clades or cladis. Offensio might fit as well, because it means “personal affront” or “insult” (an offensio iniusta is the justification for an act of self-defense).
Malignitas fits, because it’s close to “grudge” in meaning, but maybe malitia (which is closer to “malice”) would have been the better choice (Ius summum saepe summa est malitia).
One small nitpick: in an inscription, the last word would be “VLTIO”. To the Romans, “U” and “V” were the same letter, and as a capital letter it was written “V”.
Latin is a dead language,
As dead as dead can be.
First it killed the Romans,
And now it’s killing me.
Intelligo.
Technically speaking, detrimento and victoria, or clades and victoria should be introduced by an in, so: in clade (ablative) and in victoria are correct – but less elegant than a sequence of nouns. And it’s perfectly alright to choose the more straightforward alternative for an inscription.
Aside: I guess, you know that the motto is a corruption of one of Churchill’s sayings:
Or, in Latin:
Here’s a nice little list if you ever want to sound educated;
Utinam barbari spatioum proprium tuum invadant!
That was my personal cache, damnit!
Originally posted by Wintertime:
IN BELLO CONSILIVM - IN CLADE CONTVMACIA - IN VICTORIA CLEMENTIA - IN PACE BENEVOLENTIA
Remiinds me of a spurious (from Mad) quote about William F. Buckley:
“I may be contumacious, but I’m never revocatory!”