Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 April 7

= April 7 =

Latin phrase
Sir Thomas Bodley, in one of his many letters to Thomas James, the first librarian of the Bodleian, quotes this Latin proverb: "Ad pauca respicientes de facili hallucinator." Can anyone provide a rough translation? Babrahamse 06:59, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I think it is a variation on a saying ascribed to Aristotle, which in Latin is: Ad pauca respicientes de facili enunciant. I think (but am not too sure of my translation) that this roughly means "They speak with ease about (a) few things." I don't have a Latin dictionary here, and all online dictionaries that I know of are unreachable right now. In the variant, instead of "They speak", read "I dream". The Latin master is quoted by Fortescue in his Governance of England. He provides the following explanation in English, which does not truly aid my understanding: thai that see but few thynges, woll sone say thair advyses. I think I'm better in understanding a translation into Russian found here: "They understand too little, but too easily give advice". I cannot quite match that with the Latin, in particular the word "understand". If respicientes refers to the subject of enunciant, then the grammatically required agreement in number is not obeyed in the Bodleian variation. --Lambiam Talk  10:41, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Hallucinator doesn't mean "I dream", hallucinor/alucinor does. It could be a misprint for hallucinatur, or, to agree with respicientes, hallucinantur. —Angr 12:03, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Hallucinator could be the agent noun (nominative singular) derived from the verb. The verb (apparently more often spelled with a single "l" in classical Latin, according to what my dictionary says) could also mean "to talk idly", which could be the meaning here... AnonMoos 12:34, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Right. Hallucinator could possibly mean "dreamer", or "idle talker"; however, that does not seem to make sense in the context. As a verb "to talk idly" fits with "say thair advyses" / "give advice", and could possibly be simply an alternative translation of the (to me) unknown Greek. I saw that the version with enunciant is also quoted by Gaetanus in a commentary on a work by Aquinas. --Lambiam Talk  12:46, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
 * I found the original Bodley quote at Google Book Search. It is "Ad pauca respicientes de facili hallucinantur." --Cam 14:09, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Using Google Book Search I found the Greek original in a page of notes in an edition of Governance of England. Unfortunately, the text was scanned at a low resolution and is hard to read; in particular I could not make out the last word. This is what I deciphered: προς ολιγα βλεφαντες, αποφαιναντες ρ??ον. Here we find both verb forms to be agreeing participles. Αποφαινω can mean many things, including "to give an opinion". So altogether we have something like: "Seeing [= understanding] few things [= little], [but] ρ??ον [= eagerly?] giving an opinion". I further found another Latin version with the variant paralogizantur for the last word; presumably this Greek loanword also means something like "to utter" or "to talk (idly)".  --Lambiam Talk  18:07, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


 * The Aristotle passage is De generatione et corruptione 316a9-10 (πρὸς ὀλίγα βλέψαντες, ἀποφαίνονται ῥᾷον). For many more Latin quotations, google pauca respicientes facile.  Alucinantur means "talk idly, prate," so it doesn't change at all the meaning of the Latin tag as usually quoted, which is that a narrowness of experience makes it easy to babble forth ignorant proclamations.  Oh, and, for Lambiam, there's a place online where you can consult Lewis & Short's Latin dictionary (LSJ too) at lightning speed that is not as precarious as Perseus, etc.  Wareh 18:35, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Maybe we should make this the motto of the reference desk :) :(. Thanks for the link. --Lambiam Talk  18:53, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Those interested in the original Aristotelian context should see Joachim's translation (search for "those whom devotion to abstract discussions has rendered unobservant of the facts are too ready to dogmatize on the basis of a few observations"). Wareh 18:40, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you all, and sorry for the "scribal error." I copied it out of a book into my notebook, because I couldn't check it out. Lambian Wareh's "a narrowness of experience makes it easy to babble forth ignorant proclamations" makes sense in the context of the letter. Babrahamse 21:23, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Pupil, Student, Academic, Scholar
Is there a difference between those four words mentioned above? Also, is 'anomaly' the antonym of 'normally'? Are they related in some way? Can an elementary school or infant school be considered academia?69.218.220.86 16:47, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, no, no, no. —Angr 18:07, 7 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Explain why you stated 'no'.69.218.220.86 18:30, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


 * For the last question, see Academia.
 * The Greek word nomos means "law" or "rule", and the prefix a- indicates a negation. The word anomaly is a noun. An anomaly is something that "does not fit the rule", in particular a rule or law that is proposed as an abstraction of observed phenomena. You might call four-leaf clover an anomaly, the rule being that clover is three-leaved. See further Anomaly. The corresponding adjective is anomalous, and the adverb is then anomalously. If an observed rule is turned into a norm, then something anomalous is also abnormal – the true antonym of "normal". There is also a word anomie, which also comes from a- + nomos, but it originally meant a situation of lawlessness. The origin of the Latin word norma (whence norm and normal) is unknown, but a relationship with Greek nomos is not particularly likely.
 * The word scholar has three distinct meanings. The first is similar to academic, but puts more emphasis on learnedness than on institutionalized knowledge transfer. The second is similar to student. The third is someone who has been awarded a scholarship, who may be a scholar already in the first or second sense. Student can also mean: someone who is studying something outside of any regular context. Apart from that, pupil and student mean almost the same, but for differences in use see further Student. You can find out such things yourself in Wikipedia by typing the word in the seeachbox in the left margin and clicking Search. --Lambiam Talk 18:45, 7 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Some people say "pupil" should be used for youngsters (say, before high school) and "student" thereafter. A scholar or academic sould be someone like a university professor or researcher. -- Mwalcoff 01:10, 8 April 2007 (UTC)


 * That's a fair account of current U.S. usage, but certainly "scholar" has often been used appropriately of schoolboys and "pupil" of disciples who only met their masters during adulthood. Wareh 00:09, 9 April 2007 (UTC)