# (Un)Translate this Latin motto
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-translate-this-latin-motto/432201
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [January 3, 2008, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-translate-this-latin-motto/432201 "2008-01-03T22:42:36Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2008, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-translate-this-latin-motto/432201/1 "2008-01-03T22:42:36Z")
OK, I took a couple of years of Latin back in school, and dusted off a vocabulary book to take a stab at creating a motto for a technical group at work, suitable for bannering over a door frame.
Rather than tell any Latin Literati on the SDMB what I was trying to convey, how about you see if you can make sense of what I wrote. That way I can tell them it means “Here are found brave seekers for truth”.
**ET CAECI SCIURI NUCEM INTERDUM INVENIENT**
😉
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### Author:  [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2008, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-translate-this-latin-motto/432201/2 "2008-01-03T23:04:35Z")
Dust off and nuke em from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.
//I know no Latin
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### Author:  [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2008, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-translate-this-latin-motto/432201/3 "2008-01-03T23:34:57Z")
[QUOTE=robardin]
Rather than tell any Latin Literati on the SDMB what I was trying to convey, how about you see if you can make sense of what I wrote. That way I can tell them it means “Here are found brave seekers for truth”.
[/QUOTE]
A truth which even a blind seeker will occasionally find just by a stab in the dark?
Or more literallyEven the blind will occasionally find a squirrel’s nut.
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### Author:  [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2008, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-translate-this-latin-motto/432201/4 "2008-01-03T23:55:22Z")
I think it’s grammatically ambiguous in Classical Latin… _caeci sciuri nucem invenient_ could mean, as **Cunctator** put it, “the blind ones find the nut of a squirrel”, but what I meant was “even blind squirrels sometimes find a nut”.
'Swhy they had to go all prepositional and articular in the evolution of the Romance languages I guess 🙂
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### Author:  [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)
#### Post date: [January 3, 2008, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-translate-this-latin-motto/432201/5 "2008-01-03T23:59:14Z")
[QUOTE=Ludovic]
Dust off and nuke em from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.
[/QUOTE]
Ah, a much more convincing cover translation… Thanks!
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### Author:  [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2008, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-translate-this-latin-motto/432201/6 "2008-01-04T00:02:17Z")
[QUOTE=robardin]
I think it’s grammatically ambiguous in Classical Latin… _caeci sciuri nucem invenient_ could mean, as **Cunctator** put it, “the blind ones find the nut of a squirrel”, but what I meant was “even blind squirrels sometimes find a nut”.
[/QUOTE]
Which, now that I think about it, makes much more sense than my translation. I just assumed that \*sciuri \* was genitive.
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### Author:  [@ShakWave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShakWave)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2008, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-translate-this-latin-motto/432201/7 "2008-01-04T07:42:54Z")
[QUOTE=robardin]
.. as **Cunctator** put it, “the blind ones find the nut of a squirrel”
[/QUOTE]
I had no idea the Ancient Romans liked to fondle squirrels.
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### Author:  [@FaerieBeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FaerieBeth)
#### Post date: [January 4, 2008, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/un-translate-this-latin-motto/432201/8 "2008-01-04T09:27:34Z")
[QUOTE=ShakWave]
I had no idea the Ancient Romans liked to fondle squirrels.
[/QUOTE]
If there were any group of people, past or present, that I would think capable of perpetrating sexual assault on squirrels, it would be Ancient Romans.