Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Nostrum oceanus?

¿como se le dice a alguien que va a hacer el ridículo sin llamarle idiota al mismo tiempo?

Ecce!
Vos custodes sunt nostri, oceanus, aspiceret nostrum oceanus diversitas 
(You are the guardians of our ocean, behold our ocean diversity)
Wow!
And who do we have to thank for regaling us with this inspirational aphorism? Look no further than the Querulant and intrepid Fuehrer of the latest and greatest Shark group, favorite playground of such unequaled luminaries as van Sommeran and Hartzell
Far from engaging in his habitual querulare, he has instead found it in his heart to pen this awesome public missive whilst so ganz nebenbei nonchalantly showcasing his remarkable erudition! As so often with Doktor Schmidt, this is bordering on unadulterated genius - and judging from the adulatory comments, the foule en délire fully concurs! 
And the DAFF must be both elated and deeply impressed!

Right.

I say,
Der Fuehrer hath no clothes - this is utter gibberish and not Latin!
The question being, why would anybody in his right mind choose to even go there, and this totally unnecessarily and in full knowledge of one's own abject linguistic incompetence?

A terrible mistake?
Or could this even be, horribile dictu, intentional?
May this be nothing more than pseudo-cultural grandstanding in the attempt at cementing one's intellectual supremacy among the ignoramuses - whilst fully expecting that being ignoramuses, they wouldn't catch on to the con?
May the Querulant be a Blender, too?
Honi soit qui mal y pense!

But granted, my Latin has become awfully rusty.
I could be totally wrong and may have missed something here, like some obscure (and undoubtedly sinister) Latin-derived Transylvanian dialect or the like - so let's spice things up a bit!

Competition!

The best Latin translation of "You are the guardians of our ocean, behold our ocean diversity" (whatever that may mean) wins the author one week's diving with BAD!

Rules:
  • for the sake of comparison, let's stick with aspicere in the sense of beholding = "looking upon" instead of the usual ecce as per the start of this post
  • same-same for the Greek-derived oceanus vs the Roman mare
  • classical Roman Latin please!
  • you are welcome to post as many suggestions as often as you want 
  • an illustrious panel of anonymous reviewers will judge the submissions and choose the winner 
  • bonus point for posting the correct plural of "Sir"!
Howz that for a challenge!
Here's your once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to celebrate your hopelessly anachronistic linguistic prowess whilst monetizing it in the process!

Enjoy!

6 comments:

Megalobomb said...

"He wrapped himself in quotations as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors." - Rudyard Kipling

DaShark said...

Touché! :)

Anonymous said...

Costodes marium nostrorum estis, aspicite diversitatem marium nostrorum

DaShark said...

Hallelujah, we got ourselves a first answer!

Not bad, but... :)

Marlen said...

I have to agree ... in what comes along as a lofty latin aphorism, everything is pretty much messed up ... essentially, there is no visible syntax, and as such the sentence is not translatable. My suggestion: „Vos custodes estis nostri oceani, aspicite nostri oceani diversitatem". Maybe someone really wanted to cement his intellectual supremacy among the ignoramuses - who ever it was...
Best regards from snowy Zurich, Marlen

DaShark said...

Thank you Marlen!
Indeed, it's nothing but utter pseudo-cultural balderdash.

Post-mortem here.

You've won yourself one week's diving with BAD - surely a nice change from snow in Switzerland! :)
Congratulations!