Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2022 March 16

= March 16 =

Which Bible version in Latin?
It is widely documented that the motto of the Order of Canada, desiderantes meliorem patriam, is from the Bible verse Hebrews 11:16 and means "they desire a better country". The English text can easily be confirmed, for example, here: the wording is from the King James Version and others.

But it looks to me as though desiderantes should mean "desiring", not "they desire", so I decided I wanted to see the context in Latin. Searches for online Bible editions in Latin led me to the Vulgate, but there the passage reads simply meliorem appetunt: "they hunger for a better one", referring to the word patriam two verses back to tell you what sort of better thing. See here, for example.

I don't imagine that anyone in the Government of Canada was making up Latin quotations from the Bible, so which Latin edition of the Book of Hebrews did they find this passage in? And what does the whole verse say in Latin? --184.144.97.125 (talk) 00:04, 16 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Also in the original Greek, the verb form,, is finite (third-person plural middle/passive indicative present tense). Perhaps the "widely documented" claim is incorrect. The motto may have been "inspired" by the Bible verse, but in the epistle, the better country being desired is heavenly, not a profane "improved" Canada. The website of the Government of Canada does not mention a Biblical provenance.
 * Well, it did when Wikipedia cited it here: Look! Sorry, I thought that was definitive. --184.144.97.125 (talk) 04:18, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * It still does, and says that "The English translation of the Latin text" is taken from the bible. So that sounds like somebody (John Ross Matheson?) took words from an English bible and translated them to Latin (however badly). Card Zero  (talk) 07:36, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't know if this has been remarked elsewhere, but the motto invites an interpretation as referring to people who seek to emigrate because their current country sucks. --Lambiam 01:00, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Bill Casselman said it was wrong, but no one listened and they put it on the Arms of Canada in 1994. "They desire a better country is best put into poetic Latin this way: patriam volunt meliorem. Disiderantes is not the third person plural, present indicative of the first conjugation Latin verb, desiderare. It is the nominative plural of the present participle used as an agent noun, and can thus be accurately translated 'those ardently wishing for death.' Desiderare in Latin does not suggest a mere polite desire for something. The semantic force of this verb is an urgent yearning, a desiderative impulse far stronger than the pipsqueak English verb 'desire.' In fact, the Latin verb is misused here. The full meaning of desiderare is to long or pine for something once possessed but now lost. Surely that is not what the originators of the Order of Canada or the nincompoop heralds who added this foolish tag to our coat of arms had in mind?"
 * Apparently John Ross Matheson proposed the translation.
 * Matheson says derives from.


 * So in short, someone in the Government of Canada was making up Latin quotations from the Bible. Huh, I did not imagine that.  Thanks! --184.144.97.125 (talk) 04:18, 16 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Not so fast. The original text comes down to us in Koine Greek, so a translation to English based on an intermediate translation into Latin must be regarded as much less accurate than a direct translation by modern scholars working with the earliest Koine Greek manuscripts. Cullen328 (talk) 07:12, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I get the impression that it was actually a Canadian Judge working with some descendent of the King James Version, but I still don't see how that's "making up Latin quotations". It's just translating. Or maybe that's the same thing? Card Zero  (talk) 07:44, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * The Latin in the Vulgate is a fairly literal translation of the sentence in Koine Greek and remained unchanged when the Vulgata Clementina was revised and replaced by the Nova Vulgata. The Canadian motto only evokes a faint semantic reminiscence of the original sentence while bearing no grammatical resemblance to it, whether in Latin or in Greek. --Lambiam 08:09, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, but the damage was done way back in 1611, so this is not an opportunity to blame Canada. Card Zero  (talk) 08:28, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * No, the minutes do not reference the English, Latin or Greek bible at all. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 09:26, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Do we know who originally contributed the Latin motto? Was it Matheson? Matheson refers to Heb. 11:16. Did he make this up, or was he told it was the provenance? It is worth pointing out that Matheson translates the motto as a noun phrase, "desirers of a better country". --Lambiam 09:35, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I think the online trail ends with McCreery and a visit to the archives at Queen's University at Kingston (fn. 12 to "He immediately proposed the Latin translation...") or asking the author for clarification are the next steps for the mistrustful and motivated. I'm only mistrustful. fiveby(zero) 12:57, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Or, i guess the more diligent would find: Together, quickly pooling our memories of boarding school Latin classes, we decided that the Latin words would be "desiderantes meliorem patriam." Later checking confirmed that we were right. fiveby(zero) 13:33, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * My conclusion: (1) to call the motto a translation of a phrase from Hebrews 11:16 is historically wrong, while "phrase taken from" is strongly misleading – the relation to Hebrews 11:16 is that the motto is "inspired by" or "derived from" it; (2) the motto is, and was meant to be, a noun phrase, so it should not be translated as a sentence. --Lambiam 16:28, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * If this Latin phrase meaning "those who pine for a better country" was meant to be a translation of the KJV's "they desire a better country", it is a mistranslation (as pointed out by Casselman). A more literal translation of the Vulgate into English is "they desire a better one". But, in a context in which it has just been stated that "they ... declare plainly that they seek a country", I feel that "they desire a better country" is a fair translation – no damage done. --Lambiam 09:29, 16 March 2022 (UTC)


 * So I repeat, the answer is that someone in the Government of Canada was making up Latin quotations from the Bible. (The issue is whether the Latin motto was in fact found in the Bible, not whether the translations involving Greek or English are correct.)  By the way, I'm sure the reason for using Latin was that it isn't English or French. --184.144.97.125 (talk) 05:24, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
 * If you insist. I don't see anyone (in or out of the Government of Canada) claiming that the Latin is a quote, though. Much depends on what you think "taken from" means, and whether it refers to the Latin or the English version. Card Zero  (talk) 07:54, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Okay, I insist -- qed! Seriously, on the old version of the government web site that I cited above, the words "the motto of the Order of Canada, DESIDERANTES MELIOREM PATRIAM (They desire a better country) – (the Epistle to the Hebrews, chapter 11 verse 16)" clearly imply that the Latin version is from Hebrews. --184.144.97.125 (talk) 02:10, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Family dictatorship
I wonder if anyone here has an answer to the why tag in the lede of family dictatorship. How is a "family dictatorship" any different from an absolute monarchy? Is there really much of a difference in practice between say North Korea and Saudi Arabia, in terms of who runs the country? – filelakeshoe (t / c) 🐱 10:08, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * At least nominally, North Korea is not a monarchy but a republic. While the line of succession of the position of Supreme Leader has been patrilineal, there is (afaik) no enshrined rule determining the successor. It seems that the current leader and his Respected First Lady have not yet produced progeny. Could the baton be passed on to his sister? --Lambiam 10:45, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * I remember a master thesis which discussed European monarchies and stipulated that the main distinction between monarchies and non-monarchies tends to be the title. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 12:53, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * To state that the Swiss Confederation is a monarchy but in name is a bit of a stretch. --Lambiam 16:11, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Maybe the point was the opposite: European monarchies are (today) constitutional monarchies with no real power in the monarch so politically they are little different from non-monarchies. PrimeHunter (talk) 09:41, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Name of the thread of life
...in Greek mythology. Moirai has the names of the deities that spin (Clotho), measure (Lachesis) and cut (Atropos) the thread of life but not the actual name of the thread. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk) 11:35, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * wikt:μίτος (mitos) has "thread of destiny" among its definitions. Card Zero  (talk) 12:21, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Who else suddenly remembered User:Medeis? —Tamfang (talk) 06:46, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Hard to believe Medeis has been gone for about 4 years already. --←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:40, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
 * An excellent, highly educated editor who is truly missed. Cullen328 (talk) 01:42, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

Conventions for recording time in transitioning from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time
Re: United States.

Changing back and forth from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time results in two oddities: one day of the year is reduced to being only 23 hours long; one day of the year is extended to being 25 hours long.

In spring, clocks spring forward from 1:59 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. So, the time designations of 2:00 a.m., 2:01 a.m., 2:02 a.m., etc. – all the way through to 2:59 a.m. – do not even occur. These time designations do not officially “exist” at all. (On this one particular day.)

Conversely, in fall, clocks fall back from 1:59 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. Thus, the time designations of 1:00 a.m., 1:01 a.m., 1:02 a.m., etc. – all the way through to 1:59 a.m. –  will actually occur twice in succession. In other words, we observe the time designations of 1:00 a.m., 1:01 a.m., 1:02 a.m., etc. – all the way through to 1:59 a.m. – (the first time around) … and then we immediately observe them all over again (the second time around). (On this one particular day.)

In the US, the official change of time from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time – and vice versa – occurs at 2:00 AM … in the dead middle of the night. On a Sunday, no less. Presumably, this is to minimize disruption to our daily lives, as most people are dead asleep at 2:00 AM.

So far, so good. We all go to sleep that night … not particularly concerned about the next 7 or 8 intervening late night/early morning hours …and we awake the next morning. So, in effect, (hypothetically, “on paper”) we have either lost or gained an extra hour of sleep, before we wake up. And it’s not a big deal.

However, I imagine that there are some circumstances and scenarios (i.e., some environments) in which those specific late night/early morning hours are indeed significant and important.

Just off the top of my head … hospitals with their medical scheduling and administration of medications, etc., … busses, trains, and airplanes in travel … computer programs … people working at NASA on space flights, etc., etc., etc. That sort of thing.

So, my question is this.

In the fall change-over: When we repeat those 60 minute time designations from 1:00 a.m., 1:01 a.m., 1:02 a.m., etc. – all the way through to 1:59 a.m. – is there some official or standard way of recording these times? Like, for example, the time would be recorded as: 1:57 A … 1:58 A … 1:59 A … 1:00 B …1:01 B … 1:02 B … and so forth? How is this generally handled in those specific cases where it actually matters?

I have always wondered about this. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 15:44, 16 March 2022 (UTC)
 * One way would be (using the Pacific Time Zone as an example) to record that something happened on 6 November 2022 at 1:30 AM PDT; then, an hour later, something else happened at 1:30 AM PST. There's a risk of confusion because of the common mistake of writing PST to mean Pacific Time even in summer, but if everyone avoids this error, these times are unambiguous. --Trovatore (talk) 16:12, 16 March 2022 (UTC)


 * To answer the NASA-specific part of the question, they use Universal time. See for example the timestamps on Fireball and Bolide Data. Joseph were you inspired by today's xkcd (Consensus time)? 70.67.193.176 (talk) 19:22, 16 March 2022 (UTC)


 * Joseph_A._Spadaro -- The most general way of indicating this is with UTC time offsets -- the daylight savings time offset for a time zone would be one hour off from the standard time offset for that zone... AnonMoos (talk) 03:20, 17 March 2022 (UTC)


 * In the UK, we would specify GMT for Greenwich Mean Time or BST for British Summer Time if there was any chance of confusion. Alansplodge (talk) 19:30, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Some of us with military connections may also invoke "Zulu Time". I did so myself two days ago in a conversation regarding another's appointment with a quasi-military establishment on the morning after the UK's clocks go forward to BST. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.213.229.59 (talk) 03:06, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, all. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 23:04, 20 March 2022 (UTC)