Latin sounds quite pretty in it's own way. One day, if folks are interested and if we get to meet, I'll read aloud some Horace or Ovid or Virgil or Cicero. Prat Pratik Patel Interim Director Office of Special Services Queens College Director CUNY Assistive Technology Services The City University of New York ppatel@xxxxxx -----Original Message----- From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of siss52 Sent: Saturday, March 12, 2005 7:07 PM To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Is this is? Ah well! There were all these choices and I didn't have Latin. We could choose Latin or French and I chose French because it "sounded prettier". <<sigh> As Cindy pointed out, Dave, you forgot about Google. <smile> Sue S. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Pratik Patel" <pratikp1@xxxxxxxxx> To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Saturday, March 12, 2005 3:25 PM Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Is this is? Hello all, I have not yet departed for CSUN. I'm actually planning to get there Tuesday afternoon. 1. The "moritori" should, in fact, have been "morituri." My usual sense of "perfection," as Cindy terms it, is marred by my dismal fingers, not being able to obey my brain's commands. 2. Latin, unlike English, often gives the word order a secondary consideration to sound and meaning. As a result, "morituri te salutamus," "te salutamus morituri," and "salutamus te morituri" have the same exact meaning. However the original phrasing, "morituri te salutamus" sounds much more fluid and was used by gladiators. The verb often ends up being at the end of the sentence. 3. The correct translation is "we, who are about to die, salute you!" Cindy, the phrase you found "morituri te salutant," while grammatically in order, has a different meaning. The conjugated form "salutant" implies a third person plural subject; and, as the phrase was used by the gladiators themselves, it cannot be the correct one. The correct translation for that phrase is "they, who are about to die, salute you." There is a second reason why that phrase would not have been used. Most of the gladiators were slaves and would simply not have refered themselves as "they." I'm afraid that particular source did not do his/her homework correctly. There goes my idea of leaving you something to do so that you don't cause trouble. Maybe I should think of something else. Prat Pratik Patel Interim Director Office of Special Services Queens College Director CUNY Assistive Technology Services The City University of New York ppatel@xxxxxx -----Original Message----- From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Cindy Sent: Friday, March 11, 2005 11:12 PM To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Is this is? Sue, I think he made a mistake. I, too, did some research. The Las Vegas Gladiators seems to have Te Salutimus Morituri! as its motto, and someone names starmoth (do you think it's a pseudonym of Prat's) has published a list of 13 books about death, Favorite Books about Death, and he uses Prat's phrase, morituri te salutimus . But what you found is closest. What I found was "Morituri te salutant," "we who are about to die salute you" used by gladiators to salute the Emperor. So not only did Prat give us the wrong spelling of morituri (he reckoned with google -- he, he,he--), but his, or Las Vegas', syntax is wrong. The correct phrase would make sense, seeing that's he's using it before going off to the wild (even without Guido?) csun conference. (grin). Cindy -- siss52 <siss52@xxxxxxx> wrote: > > "To those about to die we salute you." > > Did you type moritori instead of morituri? > Prat's gone so what do you think, Cindy? Kellie? > If he didn't trick us > with a wrong letter, then I am way off. <lol> > > Sue S. > > > > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business - Try our new resources site! http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/resources/