Showing posts with label The Emperor has no Clothes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Emperor has no Clothes. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Zero Syntax!

Barf - source!

Yay!
We got ourselves a winner, and I cite!
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...
Bingo!
I must say, I was initially dismayed by the total absence of comments by English-speaking biology students, the more as I thought that the prize of one week's diving with Sharks would prove irresistible. But then, a lecturer explained that in today's times, the required foreign language in Biology is not Latin but Computer!
O tempora!

It lacks any proper declension and conjugation, and the words are arranged in the wrong order. Translated into English, it reads as follows
You the guardians they are of our, the ocean, may he used to look upon the our the ocean the diversity.
Whatever, right?
Who cares about those minutiae as long as one can continue to bask in the uncritical adulation by the Sharkanatics whilst posting atrocious photoshopped Götterdämmerungskitsch-edits, see above, an denen Adolf seine helle Freude gehabt hätte!

But back to Marlen's answer.
It fulfills all my preconditions and is formally correct - but having said that, I believe the vos to be redundant and would also rearrange the words as follows, this to better reflect classical Latin sentence structure, e.g. verb at the end (tho imperative may be an exception) and genitives before accusative and nominative.

Ergo.
Oceani nostri custodes estis, oceani nostri diversitatem aspicite!
Thoughts?

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!