Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 August 25

= August 25 =

Praematura morte jam erepto
I found a Latin vita of Otto Heuer in his doctoral dissertation at Google books and typed it out at Talk:Otto Heuer. Google translate did a good job, but I am confused by the phrase "patre Friderico Guilelmo, praematura morte jam erepto". Similar text say "praematura morte mihi jam erepto", already taken from me by his premature death, is that a good translation here? TSventon (talk) 09:55, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I think it means, "My jam got moldy in the fridge, and exploded way before its sell-by date". Well, it could be that, couldn't it? Mathglot (talk) 11:08, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Mathglot, that is consistent with the well-known phrase, "Caesar adsum jam forte, Pompey aderat". TSventon (talk) 11:46, 25 August 2022 (UTC)


 * But not consistent with the schoolboy joke: Caesar adsum jam forte / Pompey aderat / Caesar sic in omnibus / Pompey sic inat. :-) Alansplodge (talk) 14:07, 25 August 2022 (UTC)]]|undefined
 * D'oh! I think we're both using the same gag. Apologies. Alansplodge (talk) 14:22, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Yes, it's a good translation, except that there is no mihi ("from me"). Erepto - past participle of eripio ("take away") in the ablative to agree with patre Friderico Guilelmo. Praematura morte "by premature death" (ablative again). Jam "already". ColinFine (talk) 14:36, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
 * ColinFine thank you for the grammatical detail, I will change Google translate's "already saved by premature death" to "already taken away by his premature death". TSventon (talk) 14:48, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
 * It occurs to me: "Already" might not be the best translation of jam. It can mean "now". See iam ColinFine (talk) 15:25, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
 * There is something very unusual about the following piece of Latin doggerel.  See if you can work out what it is:

In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni.

The first Latin limerick was written by St Thomas Aquinas. The advent of Protestantism widened the scope:


 * There was a young man who said, "Damn!
 * It is borne upon me that I am
 * But a being that moves
 * In predestinate grooves -
 * I'm not even a bus, I'm a tram.


 * "In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni". I recognise this from a book I read way back in the 1980s. It means something like this "we go into the circle of the night and are consumed by fire". The funny thing is that it's a palindrome. J I P  &#124; Talk 19:07, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Nocte is absolutely an ablative absolute: " at night" or " by night". --Lambiam 11:31, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy
did "play" and "boy" rhyme in 1659? Do they still rhyme in any English dialect? (The proverb seems a bit off to my ears, you'd expect a rhyme, but then I'm not a native speaker) -- 2A01:C23:5D31:EA00:1088:F292:E5C6:9EF9 (talk) 18:07, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I would think not - it's not a limerick.  Consult the section above in a few minutes. 2A00:23C3:F780:EC01:FCD1:AB60:49DA:FDD7 (talk) 18:14, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
 * If it has any poetic intent at all, it reads a bit like blank verse, which is to say it has a bit of a rhythm to it, but it doesn't rhyme. -- Jayron 32 18:19, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
 * A teacher of mine 60 years ago stated that they did rhyme, in whatever linguistic group the saying originated. Not sure how he knew though. HiLo48 (talk) 18:31, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
 * The Oxford English Dictionary traces "boy" back to Middle High German buobe, and "play" back to Old English plega. 2A00:23C3:F780:EC01:FCD1:AB60:49DA:FDD7 (talk) 18:38, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't know how to pronounce either of those. Do you? HiLo48 (talk) 18:43, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Mm, etymology is rather beside the point here. But there is some comfort in the knowledge that I am not the first to think that the saying could have rhymed once, or should. --2A01:C23:5D31:EA00:1088:F292:E5C6:9EF9 (talk) 18:40, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Work and Jack also end in the same sound. Anyway, judging from Wiktionary, it seems as if the proverb didn't rhyme in Middle English, either. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 20:22, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Note that Shakespeare rhymed "boy" with "toy", half a century earlier. I couldn't find any 17th century poetry which rhymes "oy" with "ay" (you might expect "joy" with "day" for instance, but apparently not). Alansplodge (talk) 11:32, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Wiktionary does not give buobe as an ancestor, merely High German Bube (which does descend from Middle High German buobe) as a (possible) cognate, both deriving from Proto-Germanic bō-, the German word by reduplication, which also produced English babe. --Lambiam 11:26, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
 * Who says it has to rhyme? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:18, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
 * No one at all has suggested that it has to. The discussion is whether or not it did many centuries ago, as apparently has been claimed. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.208.90.29 (talk) 20:03, 26 August 2022 (UTC)


 * See also Assonance... AnonMoos (talk) 22:24, 26 August 2022 (UTC)