Talk:Sator Square

SATOR square, Markovich translation
You are completely right, Markovich does not have "the". I added it in the citation ino order to make clear that, obviously, while M. intended "checks" as a verb, he also intended "toils and tortures" not as verbs (the commas suggested that) but instead as the object of "checks": Latin words can only be translated in this sense. I see that you also tried to solve the ambiguity, using "keeps in check" instead of "checks" - but this also is not respectful of Markovich's original text... What do you think of "The sower Horus/Harpocrates checks [the] toils and tortures"? I find this would be accurate enough while not inducing readers in any misunderstanding... Or, "The sower Horus/Harpocrates checks [=keeps in check the] toils and tortures" which is perhaps better English? Signo (talk) 13:50, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Moving this here from my talk page. Aszx5000 (talk) 18:46, 30 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Hi Signo, I would do the former (add [the]), as it is less open to any claim that you have interpreted it as such? It probably is always open to such a claim as I don't think Markovich elaborated on his sentence, however, it would not be unreasonable imho. Aszx5000 (talk) 18:52, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

Arepo [mis]interpretations
The first sentence in this section says "The word AREPO is a hapax legomenon (i.e. it appears nowhere else in Latin literature)." Nothing wrong with that.

Further down it says "French historian Jerome Carcopino interpreted AREPO as the Greek ἅπαξ, and believed that it came from the Gaulish word for a 'plough'". This looks confused to me, since "ἅπαξ" literally is the word "hapax", meaning "once", and "hapax legomenon" is the transliteration of the original Greek phrase "ἅπαξ λεγόμενον", meaning "said once". I sincerely doubt that Jerome Carcopino interpreted AREPO as the Greek word ἅπαξ, but I'll leave that for someone else to check.

At any rate it looks to me like it should just read "French historian Jerome Carcopino believed that AREPO came from the Gaulish word for a 'plough'" and leave the Greek out of it. Chuck Entz (talk) 09:57, 25 December 2023 (UTC)


 * That makes sense to me; the current sentence is just a repeat of the concept of a hapax without realizing that it has already been introduced (and thus confusion to re-state under its Greek name). I have made the change you suggested. thanks for that. Aszx5000 (talk) 19:29, 28 December 2023 (UTC)