Talk:Di Penates

Untitled
They were usually represented with a disproportioned penis and their statues were above the entrance door (or sometimes over the roofs) of Roman houses and villas.

This is from a previous version of the article, which assumed that penates came from penis, the Latin word for tail. Given that it actually comes from penus, referring to stored stuff, I think it needs to be reviewed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Josh Grosse (talk • contribs) 20 October 2003

In all my studies of the romans, I have never heard of any such disproportioned statues, and if this is true I was also misled about the derivation of the name. I think it needs to be heavily researched before it's re-added. I'll add this to my watch list and see what I can do. Ministry of Silly Walks 03:46, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Penus from the Latin word Penātēs
I copied this "penis" discussion page here to get the editors to allow searches of "Penus" to be directed to this Di <meaning Two) Penates <meaning "food stock or food stores" Di Penates. Penates could also work as a title page. Why someone place Di in front of the title Di Penates, is beyond me. Here is the discussion page from "penis". That page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Penis#Penus_from_the_Latin_word_Pen.C4.81t.C4.93s

Penus from the Latin word Penātēs
Etymology studies will not support that Penus means Penis. Because you can penetrate to impregnate does not mean a narrow understanding of Penis. There are many words of Pen- "almost" and "head".

Now read about Latin suffix: second and third declensions.

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2139/what-is-the-plural-of-penis

From that web site. "Part of the problem is that when unaccented, the singular endings -us and -is tend to be pronounced the same in English".

"One other group of Latin nouns in -us is different. These are fourth-declension masculine nouns".

I am asking for someone to link Latin Penus to Lares (Penates: 1505–15; < L Penātēs, akin to penus stock of provisions). (hope I did this on the correct page and forum, thanks).65.66.155.37 (talk) 16:53, 12 June 2009 (UTC)


 * What are you getting at? The word "penus" does not appear anywhere in the article, which says that the word penis comes from the Latin for "tail".  This is supported by the etymology given in the Oxford English Dictionary: "< classical Latin pēnis tail, the male genital organ < the same Indo-European base as Sanskrit pasas, ancient Greek πέος. Compare French pénis (1618 as penis; subsequently from 1753)."  The OED supports the two plural forms given in the article ("penises" and "penes") and also mentions that the irregular form "peni" is in use. -- AJR | Talk 00:28, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

First thanks for answering. We agree: you wrote: the word "penus" does not appear anywhere in the article,, which says that the word penis comes from the Latin for "tail". Pen-is and Pen-us are not the same thing, although like the author of that article (http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2139/what-is-the-plural-of-penis)pointed out 'many people think they are the same'. The quote: "Those with a little learning know that penus, if it were a second declension noun like most -us nouns in Latin, would be expected to have the plural form peni. Since penus would be pronounced the same--or almost the same--as penis in English, the temptation is strong to use the incorrect peni as the plural". (from the same article): '''Penis is a third declension noun, not second declension. These nouns often end in -is in the singular and -es in the plural'''. (later in the same article): It so happens that penus, the near homophone of penis that I mentioned above, is a real word in Latin but of the fourth declension, so the plural is penus, not peni. It means "household stock," ....... Wikipedia searches for "penus" point to this Penis page. <that is my point (gripe). Keep all the references to "penis" pointing to this page, however allow the search of "penus" to be directed to the Di Penates page. see this page in the dictionary: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/penate Origin: 1505–15; < L Penātēs, akin to penus stock of provisions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penates from that wikipedia page on Penates: In Roman mythology, the Di Penates or briefly Penates were originally patron gods (really geniuses) of the storeroom, later becoming household gods guarding the entire household. They were related to the Lares, Genii and Larvae. Penates are referred to in Propertius (iv.i). end. Penātēs is not showing up in a search for "penus". Someone else (before me)did bring up "penus" referring to stored stuff (should be food stock) on their talk page of Di Penates. Here is that link. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Di_Penates At the very least could we have a "penus" disambiguation page? Possibly resolving this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dab_page Thanks for taking the time to read this.65.66.155.37 (talk) 01:00, 18 June 2009 (UTC)