[lit-ideas] Re: Help (re-post?)
- From: epostboxx@xxxxxxxx
- To: Lit-Ideas <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 28 May 2016 10:30:18 +0200
On 27 May 2016, at 20:42, David Ritchie wrote:
I’m not sure if this reached the list:
Would those of you who have some Latin perhaps supply me with a line? I want
a character in a piece of fiction, a professor who is filling out
bureaucratic paperwork at his employer’s behest, to write aphoristically
along the lines of the British general who wrote, “Peccavi,” to indicate that
he had captured Sind. I’m thinking he could modify, “Veni, vidi, vici,” to
“I arrived on time, I listened, I taught.” How would that go in Latin? If
there is a crisper way to describe a year’s teaching, I’d like to hear that
too. Doesn’t have to be Latin. Could be Japanese. Just as long as it’s
terse.
Your call for help did reach the list, David — and I did think up a rather poor
response in German which I initially declined to post. I do so now, in hopes
that it may spur more worthy offerings from other (perhaps long-silent?) list
members.
'Gelernt, gelehrt, geleert.’
In its shortest translation into English, the three German words could be taken
as the past participles of the verbs ’to learn’, ’to teach’ and ’to empty’;
thus implying something simple like, ‘I learned, I taught, I emptied.’
The three words, however, can also stand as modifiers — with much richer
connotations:
‘Gelernt ist gelernt,’ is an expression used either by the actor her- or
himself or a commentator when a task or activity is carried out in a
particularly accomplished manner. (Think also of the English adjective
‘learn-ed’, pronounced with two syllables.)
‘Gelehrt’ functions adjectively (and adverbially) to mean ‘(in) a scholarly
manner’. (There is in Kiel a school — founded in 1320 — with the name ‘Die
Kieler Gelehrtenschule’ which aspires to particularly high academic standards.)
‘Geleert’ can also be used reflexively: ‘ich fuhle mich wie ausgeleert’ — ‘I
feel emptied out’ or perhaps even ‘sucked dry’ …
Surely some list member can do better!
Chris Bruce,
feeling somewhat ‘ausgeleert’
on a sunny Saturday morning, in
Kiel, Germany
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