(no subject)

[d_aulnoy]

So I was looking for a motto to engrave on a piece of jewelry with a story behind it, and I came across a listing of Latin sayings ...  Yeah.  After the cut.

*Anicularum lucubrationes - Old wives' tales
Audentes fortuna juvat - Fortune favors the bold. (Virgil)
Aut vincere aut mori - Either conquer or die
Cacoethes scribendi - An insatiable urge to write. (Juvenal)
Cave canem, te necet lingendo - Beware of the dog, he may lick you to death
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules - If I were you, I wouldn't walk in front of any catapults
Cave quid dicis, quando, et cui - Beware what you say, when, and to whom
Crudelius est quam mori semper timere mortem - It is more cruel to always fear death than to die. (Seneca)
Cui dono lepidum novum libellum? - To whom do I give my new elegant little book? (Catullus)
Feles mala! - Bad kitty!
Hostis hvmani generis - Enemy of the human race
Ignis aurum probat, miseria fortes viros - Life is not a bowl of cherries, or, literally, Fire tests gold; adversity tests strong men
In aere aedificare - Build (castles) in the air. (St. Augustine)
Interdum feror cupidine partium magnarum europe vincendarum - Sometimes I get this urge to conquer large parts of Europe
Isto pensitaris? - You get paid for this crap?
Ita erat quando hic adveni - It was that way when I got here
Mater tua criceta fuit, et pater tuo redoluit bacarum sambucus - Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries
*Melius frangi quam flecti - It is better to break than to bend
*Nam et ipsa scientia potestas es - Knowledge is power. (Sir Francis Bacon)
Ne auderis delere orbem rigidum meum! - Don't you dare erase my hard disk!
*Ne humanus crede - Trust no human
Neutiquam erro - I am not lost
Nill illigitimi carborundum - Do not let the bastards get you down
Noli nothis permittere te terere - Don’t let the bastards get you down
Non Gradus Anus Rodentum! - Not Worth A Rats Ass!
Non multa, sed multum - Not many, but much. (Meaning, not quantity but quality) (Plinius)
Omnia mea mecum porto - All that is mine, I carry with me. (My wisdom is my greatest wealth) (Cicero)
Postatem obscuri lateris nescitis - You do not know the power of the dark side
Potes currere sed te occulere non potes - You can run, but you can't hide
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari? - How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
Revera linguam latinam vix cognovi - I don’t really know all that much Latin
Ultima ratio regum - The final argument of kings
Unitam logica falsa tuam philosophiam totam suffodiant - May faulty logic undermine your entire philosophy
Urbanus et instructus - A gentleman and a scholar
Utinam logica falsa tuam philosophiam totam suffodiant! - May faulty logic undermine your entire philosophy!
Vah! Denuone Latine loquebar? Me ineptum. Interdum modo elabitur - Oh! Was I speaking Latin again? Silly me. Sometimes it just sort of slips out
Valui ad satanam in computatrum meum invocandum - I succeeded in summoning satan into my computer
Veni, vidi, vici - I came, I saw, I conquered. (Julius Caesar)
Verveces tui similes pro ientaculo mihi appositi sunt - I have jerks like you for breakfast
Viri sunt viri - Men are slime
Vulnerant omnes, ultima necat - Every (hour) wounds, the last kills. (sundial inscription)

I have no idea if these are correct, so, those fluent in Latin, feel free to make corrections: the ones that I'm seriously considering are marked by asterisks, the rest are interesting or amusing.  Also, feel free to vote as to which one of these ought to be [further] immortalized in gold ...

Comments

can you tell I have a dissertation to write?

[cataptromancer.livejournal.com]

Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules - If I were you, I wouldn't walk in front of any catapults

-literally "be careful not to walk in front of any catapults"

-*Nam et ipsa scientia potestas es

should be "EST" at the end, not 'es' (otherwise it's "and thus you are power knowledge itself" - how foucauldian)

-*Ne humanus crede - Trust no human

A much, much better way of saying this would be: "Noli credere nulli homini." The one they have is all kinds of wrong.

Nill illigitimi carborundum - Do not let the bastards get you down
Noli nothis permittere te terere - Don’t let the bastards get you down

-Use only the second of these. the first is hack work.

Non Gradus Anus Rodentum! - Not Worth A Rats Ass!

-This is okay, if inelegant (getting that idiom into latin is difficult), except change to "Non gradus ani rodentis" for correct grammar.

Postatem obscuri lateris nescitis - You do not know the power of the dark side

-Ha ha! The word they've used for side means a physical side, the flank of a person or an army. (You do not know the power of the force's dark flank)

Potes currere sed te occulere non potes - You can run, but you can't hide

-Now they're just making words up. Change 'occulere' to 'occultare' and this works.

Unitam logica falsa tuam philosophiam totam suffodiant - May faulty logic undermine your entire philosophy

-Change 'suffodiant' to 'suffodiat,' and respell unitam as UTINAM ('would that' 'may') and this works okay.

Urbanus et instructus - A gentleman and a scholar

-Both those ideas are already covered in the adjective 'urbanus'

Viri sunt viri - Men are slime

-Wow, this is cool. I never knew that word for slime. The pun works perfectly. The word for slime here can also mean poison.


....

But really, you don't have to run to substandard online latin when you've got geeky friends who've wasted a lot of time learning useless languages. I -- or perhaps many others on your flist -- would be very glad to translate anything into latin for you, or to hunt down appropriate quotations from classical authors.

Are there any latin seminal works on folklore? Vico or something (did he write in latin)?