Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2008 September 1

= September 1 =

how to say various romantic things in Latin
My girlfriend thinks I know Latin. She thinks it sounds sexy or something (sounds like Italian she says...) and rather than letting her know that I don't really know anything more that really really basic stuff, I'd like to know how to say some random romantic things in Latin before she realizes that I only speak English... So how do I say stuff like "you're adorable" and "I love you" et cetera?63.245.152.68 (talk) 12:25, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Those two are "adorabilis es" and "te amo". Or for the first one you could use gerundives, "adoranda es" or "amanda es", although I suppose she might think you are calling her by some other girl's name (unless Amanda is conveniently her name!). Check out Catullus 5 for some other romantic things. Generally I don't find Latin to be particularly romantic; it's great for describing politics and war, and you can be extremely crude with it, but it's not really sweet and romantic. Adam Bishop (talk) 12:36, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I've seen various movies in which Latin was spoken, and it always sounds like a made-up language to my ears. That is, quite unnatural and stilted.  Sebastiane was entirely in Latin, and it suffered badly because of this (I like to imagine he rejected the soldiers' advances as much for the ugly sounds they were making, as for moral reasons).  I suppose this comes down to the actors not generally knowing - because nobody really knows anymore - how Latin actually sounded when it was spoken by native speakers, so they do their best with whatever coaching they're given.  --  JackofOz (talk) 22:56, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * By the way, if you want to be obscene, try this list! Adam Bishop (talk) 04:33, 2 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Sooner or later you will need "ego sum rumex" (I am sorry) and "indulgeo mihi" (forgive me). manya (talk) 09:47, 2 September 2008 (UTC)


 * If you fancy the classics, there's always Catullus:
 * Caeli. Lesbia nostra. Lesbia illa.
 * illa Lesbia quam Catullus unam
 * plus quam se atque suos amauit omnes
 * nunc in quadruuiis et angiportis
 * glubit magnanimi Remi nepotes.


 * Which is, roughly,
 * O Heaven! Our Lesbia
 * That same Lesbia whom Catullus loved
 * more than himself and more than all his other lover
 * now in the crossroads and alleyways
 * Jerks off the noble sons of Rome....

Or Catullus, carmen 16:
 * Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo,
 * Aureli pathice et cinaede Furi,
 * qui me ex versiculis meis putastis,
 * quod sunt molliculi, parum pudicum.
 * Nam castum esse decet pium poetam
 * ipsum, versiculos nihil necesse est;
 * qui tum denique habent salem ac leporem,
 * si sunt molliculi ac parum pudici,
 * et quod pruriat incitare possunt,
 * non dico pueris, sed his pilosis
 * qui duros nequeunt movere lumbos.
 * Vos, quod milia multa basiorum
 * legistis, male me marem putatis?
 * Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo.

which one scholar translates thusly:
 * I’ll fuck you up the ass, and you can blow me,
 * you cocksucker Aurelius and you faggot Furius,
 * for suggesting that my little verses
 * are effeminate and not pure enough.
 * A good poet should be virtuous,
 * but his verses don’t need to be.
 * Who cares if verses that have spice and wit
 * are soft and not very pure?
 * They can also get you going.
 * I’m not talking to boys here, but to two hairy men
 * who can’t even move their creaky old loins.
 * Are you two putting me down
 * just because you’ve read about my thousands of kisses?
 * Fuck you both. You can blow me.


 * Though perhaps that is less erotic and less applicable than one would hope... - Nunh-huh 10:09, 2 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Some other ideas are Ovid's Ars Amatoria, and if you are willing to go with medieval Latin, Andreas Cappellanus. But they are as much about seducing impressionable girls as they are about romance. Adam Bishop (talk) 21:43, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Cause célèbre
The following is a quote from today's featured article:

"Leo Ornstein (1893–2002) was one of the leading American experimental composers and pianists of the early twentieth century. His performances of works by avant-garde composers and his own innovative and even shocking pieces made him a cause célèbre on both sides of the Atlantic."

According to Wikipedia & Wiktionary, a cause célèbre is "an issue or incident arousing widespread controversy, outside campaigning and heated public debate."

According to the Merriam_Webster On-Line Dictionary, a cause célèbre can also mean "a notorious person." Obviously different sources can disagree.

My question (addressed especially to people who regularly answer questions here) is which dictionary or dictionaries they consider most reliable and helpful.

Thanks, Wanderer57 (talk) 19:31, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I'm thinking specifically of English language dictionaries. I mention this to forestall answers of the sort "the Mongahaleian Dictionary of Urdu is unparalleled."


 * I use Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged. It's certainly my favorite reference for any word, despite its bulkiness. It also happens to be the official reference for the National Spelling Bee (in the US).--El aprendelenguas (talk) 22:00, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The Oxford English Dictionary is the best for some purposes. It's decades out of date, but its historical coverage is, I believe, unparalleled. Algebraist 22:48, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * W3NID is huge and 40 years out of date; OED is vast and 0 to 100 years out of date, depending on the word and sense. Webster's Collegiate [=Online] and the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (SOED) are their somewhat smaller, more regularly revised siblings; both excellent for US and British usage respectively. A larger dictionary will both contain more words and contain more senses for each word; the things missing in a smaller dictionary are the more obscure words and senses.  So Wiktionary leaving out the word doesn't mean it "disagrees" with Merriam-Webster.  Sometimes you can have too much information: I've never heard "cause célèbre" used thus, and I don't think it should have been in the article since it's so obscure in the intended sense.  Finding a word in a dictionary is not permission to use it wherever you like, safe in the knowledge that it's a "real word". The dictionary tells you how others have used a word: you must decide for yourself whether to use it in a given situation.
 * Online I use Onelook because it links to both Merriam-Webster and American Heritage — both are good and it's wise to check multiple sources. Offline for British English I like The Chambers Dictionary (formerly Chambers' Twentieth Century Dictionary, not to be confused with Chambers' Twenty-First Century Dictionary, an inferior work available online.) The Chambers is old-fashioned and literary with no frills; it squeezes a huge amount into definitions which are succinct if not downright terse.  Collins is probably the best mainstream British dictionary smaller than SOED, though I haven't really tested the Oxford Dictionary of English.  jnestorius(talk) 22:37, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

It's not its', it's its...
I remember finding this great quote about the use of "it's" and "its" in a Unix fortune before which I believe started out with "It's not its', it's its" or something like that. It went on for a number of sentences and made perfect sense, but might be confusing initially for some people if they don't know of the relevant grammar rules already, especially if they hear the quote instead of read it. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find the quote again. I thought I would be able to google it, but amazingly it didn't show up. Can anyone find the whole quote? Thanks! TresÁrboles (talk) 22:33, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I think I know the sort of thing you are talking about, wikipedian Benjamin Mako Hill has a list of homophonous phrases and while I can't see it there, it may be worth leaving a polite note on his talk page and see if he knows it, as he may want to add it to his collection. ;) -Phydaux (talk) 15:50, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Maybe it's this quote:
 * "It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs." -- Oxford University Press, Edpress News

Found in Fortune4All's fortune data file. Korg (talk) 23:45, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Crisis of confidence regarding a sentence involving "had" and "have"
Recently, while composing a note, I wrote:

Hopefully, these are foam too, or else Cash 'n' Guns has gotten a lot more serious than I had expected!

and then my crisis started. :) I wondered if it was correct and changed it to:

Hopefully, these are foam too, or else Cash 'n' Guns has gotten a lot more serious than I expect!

I thought of other variations like:

Hopefully, these are foam too, or else Cash 'n' Guns has gotten a lot more serious than I have expected!

before finally reverting back to my original sentence.

- Which of these sentences is correct/best?

- Is there a good, clear web resource on this particular grammar point?

Thanks! TresÁrboles (talk) 22:52, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Please see the article on the pluperfect tense. -- Wavelength (talk) 23:06, 1 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Not. The pluperfect or past perfect is "I had expected".  "I have expected" is the perfect or present perfect tense.  --Anonymous, 08:31 UTC, September 2, 2008.


 * Well, in proper English, you would say:


 * Hopefully, these are foam too. (Or else Cash 'n Guns has become a lot more serious than I expected)

--79.76.154.239 (talk) 23:53, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Some people have issues with "hopefully", and would prefer "I hope these are foam too". Also, there needs to be a full stop after "expected". --  JackofOz (talk) 01:39, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The word "hopefully" here is a dangling modifier. -- Wavelength (talk) 02:11, 2 September 2008 (UTC)]]
 * (ec with below) Either that or a sentence adverb. Deor (talk) 02:15, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Agree with anon, above. "Gotten" is a horrible word.  Exploding Boy (talk) 02:14, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * No, it's not. It's a perfectly standard word, the past participle of "get", which can mean "become". I'd probably have used the simple past "...a lot more serious than I expected", but it depends on the context, which isn't clear. —Angr 05:44, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, it's a past participle of get; specifically, the U.S. version. The other one is "got".  Depends where you're from.  --  JackofOz (talk) 07:02, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Correction. In the US and Canada, the past participle of "got" is "got" when "I've got" means "I have", and "gotten" when it doesn't (i.e. when it actually refers to getting, including senses like becoming).  For example, "I've got a cat" means I have a cat; "I've gotten a cat" means I bought/adopted/rescued/stole one. --Anonymous, 08:30 UTC, September 2, 2008.
 * Gotten is authentic... unlike snuck for sneaked, for instance. People in the US just need to remember that in some other English speaking countries, including the UK, gotten sounds weird, just like a lot of other old words that have fallen completely out of use. Strawless (talk) 12:53, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * And people outside the U.S. need to remember that not everything that's characteristic of American English is an ignorant solecism. —Angr 13:20, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I think it's mostly the English who have that view. And they are wrong, as you say. Strawless (talk) 14:15, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
 * People outside the US also need to remember that just because a usage exists in the US and not where they are, it doesn't mean that it's only a US usage. --Anon, 05:50 UTC, September 3, 2008.


 * As regards the form of the verb expect, I would go with "expected" rather than any of your options. As to the other points being debated, I would back quietly out of the room with no sudden movements. jnestorius(talk) 21:29, 2 September 2008 (UTC)