Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2014 June 28

= June 28 =

denatus commentum terenti
Is there any commentary about the work of Aelius Donatus and His Commentary on Terence’s Comedies? translation? --84.108.213.48 (talk) 16:23, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Aelius Donatus has a link to a French translation. --Pp.paul.4 (talk) 16:51, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
 * It's only about "Vita Terenti" (the life of Terence), not comedies. Denatus wrote for Terence’s comedies such as Adelphoe, Andria etc. --84.108.213.48 (talk) 18:44, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Click on the LES CORPUS HYPERDONAT tab at the top, then (on the page you're taken to) on AELI DONATI QUOD FERTUR COMMENTUM TERENTI in the left margin, for a dropdown list of links to the commentaries on individual plays. Deor (talk) 19:02, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
 * thanks --84.108.213.48 (talk) 06:01, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Valid physical object itself
In the article Permanent residence (United States) there is a phrase: "Permanent residents (...) must carry their valid physical green card itself at all times." So a valid green card might not be a convincing object of the real world, it has to be a physical card itself in order to be a card that can be truly carried. What would be lost if you were to remove the words "physical" and "itself"? Do the Americal police officers ask to see a valid physical driver's license itself? --Pxos (talk) 21:52, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes. They generally do not accept photocopies of drivers licenses as valid. -- Jayron  32  21:57, 28 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I have a passport. Its name is now "my valid passport". When I take a photocopy of it, the photocopy becomes the valid passport and the original passport becomes "my valid physical passport itself". How convenient. --Pxos (talk) 22:00, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
 * No.  I'm fairly certain the copy is not valid.-- Jayron  32  22:09, 28 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I agree with Pxos. It's over-stated by 250% (5 words where 2 would do).
 * A license, passport, theatre ticket, medical prescription, university degree, marriage certificate, or any other document that is, for whatever reason, invalid, is not worth the paper it's printed on. So, telling people they must have a "valid" green card adds nothing.
 * Now, the word "physical" suggests it's possible that there's electronic documentation of PR which could, theoretically, be accessed and produced whenever required; but the rules require the actual card to be produced, so that's a reasonable statement on the face of it. But since the verb is "carry", that couldn't really refer to merely having been the recipient of electronic confirmation of PR; otherwise it would require such people to always carry a device on which such documentation could be accessed.  Most people do have such devices, but they surely can't be made to possess one, much less carry it with them at all times.  So, "physical" does not need to be stated.
 * "Itself" is completely pointless.
 * "Permanent residents (...) must carry their green card at all times" is perfectly fine. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  22:35, 28 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Couldn't an expired green card be a green card, yet not valid? ---Sluzzelin talk  22:39, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Is a fake diamond a diamond, just fake? Is someone impersonating a cop a cop who's an impersonator?  I agree with Jayron.  Pxos's question was a paragraph too long. I fear someone may have ruined wikipedia. μηδείς (talk) 22:47, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Is bad humour humour or just something that is bad? Is Medeis mostly helpful here or is Medeis mostly just Medeis? --Pxos (talk) 07:45, 29 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Doesn't over-stating 2 words by 250% make them 7 words? --Theurgist (talk) 02:24, 29 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Oh yes, indeed. It seems my own statement was overstated by 66.666%.  (Yet another sinister clue that the end times are fast approaching, I'd say.) --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  05:16, 30 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I've shortened it to "actual green card". One word of emphasis is reasonable. But I bet someone changes it back. --70.49.171.225 (talk) 05:25, 29 June 2014 (UTC)


 * I'd prefer "physical" to "actual", as it's more specific in that we are ruling out non-physical representations, like an image of the green card on your cell phone. There was certainly a time when a "card" could be assumed to mean a physical card unless otherwise specified, but in these days of electronic devices up the wazoo (or perhaps worn on the wazoo), we can no longer make that assumption. StuRat (talk) 16:52, 30 June 2014 (UTC)


 * People play all sorts of stunts, showing photocopies, photos, scans, crayon renderings, and when things come to a head in a hearing or trial, their lawyer can spend all day saying, "Well, the statute doesn't say the valid PHYSICAL document, ITSELF!" So the lawmakers load up the rules like this, to heck with the redundancy. Doesn't matter whether a resonable person would get the same meaning with fewer words. What matters is not letting clever jerks argue for some other meaning. Sharkford (talk) 14:48, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Why do we still require physical ID ?
This also brings up a Q of mine. With documents like passports or drivers licences or green cards, it certainly seems possible to look them up electronically, and then verify that the person in question is the person on that identifying document, using photographs or fingerprints. So why aren't we implementing such systems, so people who lose their documents, or have them stolen or confiscated, aren't stuck in such a serious situation ? (The documents could be indexed under name and birth date, which hopefully everybody, or their guardian, in the case of young children or the mentally impaired, knows.) StuRat (talk) 16:57, 30 June 2014 (UTC)

Vespers in the morning in the Lutheran church?
What is it called when there is a morning "prayer service" in the Lutheran church on a weekday (i.e. Tuesday)? I know the afternoon prayer service is called a "vesper", because I recently looked it up. But what does it mean when the "prayer service" is held on a weekday in the morning? 65.24.105.132 (talk) 23:14, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
 * It's not 'a vesper' - one instance of the evening service is still called 'vespers'. Morning prayer might be 'matins' (as it is in some Anglican churches), or it might, I suppose, be 'prime'. AlexTiefling (talk) 23:16, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Yeah. I just checked the link and noticed the disambiguation page. Then I went back to my browser history and noticed the extra s. Well, I guess it's too late now, since you already read it. :P Still, why can't they just call the morning prayer "matins" and the evening prayer "vespers"? 65.24.105.132 (talk) 23:19, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
 * By the way, AlexTiefling, I must add that the Lutheran church actually makes a distinction between "matins" and "morning prayer service". In that case, what is a "morning prayer service" in the Lutheran church then, and how is it different from "matins"? 65.24.105.132 (talk) 23:27, 28 June 2014 (UTC)


 * It looks as though - as far as I can tell - modern Lutheran matins is intended to resemble the ancient monastic office of the same name, whereas Morning Prayer might be more general, or might resemble Anglican Morning Prayer in combining elements of matins, lauds and prime. I believe we have some people on here who know much more about Lutheran liturgy than me, so I'll let them give a better answer in due course. AlexTiefling (talk) 23:42, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Okay. If that fails, I can always ask the Christianity Stack Exchange. If that fails (due to a shortage of people who are not experts in Lutheranism), then I can always include that task on my to-do list. One of these days, I am going to visit the local Lutheran church and ask the pastor directly about it after service. 65.24.105.132 (talk) 00:09, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
 * The humanities reference desk might be a better place for this question, which has more to do with religion than language. —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 14:47, 29 June 2014 (UTC)


 * At least according to the article Lutheran Service Book (which has referenced Lutheran Service Book, ISBN 0-7586-1217-6), the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod and the Lutheran Church–Canada split the daily offices into Matins, Vespers and Compline, with Matins being Matins, Lauds, and Prime combined into one morning service. Sotakeit (talk) 10:39, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Cipher or language?
This is a somewhat whimsical problem.

A friend of a friend of mine was going through his late parents' house and found two identical messages taped to walls behind pictures in two bathrooms. Messages read: "EGMA, EGTUS, EGTUHUM". The person who wrote this is described as a mathematician, a fan of cryptography, who knew Latin and Greek. Question is, what do these messages mean?

Straight googling seems to take me nowhere. Overall structure is strongly reminiscent of Latin, but I can't find these words in dictionaries and "-uhum" does not seem to be a valid Latin suffix. One potential lead I could find is that "aqduhum" is "their contract" in Arabic, so maybe this was an unusual phonetic transcription of an Arabic phrase. However, my knowledge of Arabic is close to null so I couldn't get far in this direction either.

Does this ring any bells for anyone? --Itinerant1 (talk) 23:41, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Did he look for messages behind the mirrors? It's clearly directed to the family member.
 * I'm discounting the eg, it's too close to e.g. = for example, so
 * ma is like my
 * I triggered on tus ~ tuus = yours in Latin
 * On the other hand, I'm getting hits on youtube: "acha tu hum chaltey han"
 * This is too much fun. I'm getting sidetracked. --Ancheta Wis   (talk  &#124; contribs) 00:22, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
 * The anagrams for the first two words are promising: mage, game, a gem; guest, get us; but the third just yields silly results: mute hug, emu thug (did your friend's relative raise emus?). Or you could look through the list of anagrams of the whole phrase. But my guess is that it's a substitution cipher of some kind, which is hard to solve for just three words, though you could try using the person's name as a key. Cool find, anyway! Lesgles (talk) 01:35, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Note that if anagrams are in involved, they might not be in English. --70.49.171.225 (talk) 05:35, 29 June 2014 (UTC)


 * Itinerant1, they are three of the principle parts (like drive, drove, driven) of the Ancient Greek verb ago (to drive, as in cattle) rendered in rather sloppy Latinate transcription http://www.quia.com/jg/372737list.html Greek has six, rather than just the three of English or four of Latin principle parts.  Schoolboys were taught (here in Latin and with vowel accents omitted) "ago akso egagon egmai ekthein ekhha" as a mnemonic, it has the same melody as Good King Wenceslas for those studying Greek tonality. μηδείς (talk) 21:08, 2 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Here, I found the appropriately accented forms at wiktionary: ἄγω, ἄξω, ἤγαγον, ἦγμαι, ἤχθην, ἦχα. μηδείς (talk) 00:25, 3 July 2014 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia has an article "Principal parts".—Wavelength (talk) 00:30, 3 July 2014 (UTC)


 * That's an intriguing idea. The writer would have to have been incorrectly remembering these principal parts from long ago to end up with EGMA, EGTUS, EGTUHUM, though.  The overall sense does seem very similar, but the endings don't actually match (even as a sloppy transcription).  --Amble (talk) 00:33, 3 July 2014 (UTC)


 * The only question here is why this is being taped to the back of bathroom mirrors. Words like egmai can be transcribed at later dates as egma, see iota subscript, and we have no proof the misspellings aren't just misreadings (although the certainly may be misrememberings).  I studied pre-koine greek, back when the grammar wasn't barbarificated.  The bathroom window taper may simply have been a poor student, or perhaps he intended to convey a binary code.  But the doubt that this does originate from Greek is an insane one. μηδείς (talk) 03:18, 3 July 2014 (UTC)


 * (e/c) I had the gut feeling that it is Icelandic for "Veni, vidi, vici"; but google translates that as: Ég kom, ég sá, ég sigraði.   Which might have explained the mirror "clue" 71.20.250.51 (talk) 03:23, 3 July 2014 (UTC)


 * There are an enormous number of ways to read it as a Latin simple substitution cipher. For example: "Aule, audio, auditis": "Oh Aulus, I hear, you (plural) hear".  If it is meant to be a cipher for Latin, there are enough solutions that it would be impossible to know which is the right one.  --Amble (talk) 06:40, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Oops, I missed the fact that M appears twice. That makes my solution wrong, but it's still true that there will be a large number of ways to read it as a cryptogram in Latin. --Amble (talk) 19:44, 3 July 2014 (UTC)


 * To me it's redolent of a kind of satanic incantation. --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  12:17, 3 July 2014 (UTC)


 * What kind? Do you have a source? AlexTiefling (talk) 13:01, 3 July 2014 (UTC)
 * By George I say, someone has left you a wonderful clue to start your adventure. I don't want to give away too much, but I believe you are on to a journey that, successfully navigated, will lead to a monetary finding.  By chance, is there a basement in this house?  If so, you may want to look at the clues with that as a result.  What a wonderful oppurtunity you have stumbled accross.  Anagram and Cipher engines may be of help to you in finding your way. Good show to you! Phineas J. Whoopee (talk) 17:55, 3 July 2014 (UTC)