Re: Off-topic Latin request.

[reeds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Jim Reeds)]

On Mar 10,  0:35, Jim Gillogly wrote:

> Subject: Re: Off-topic Latin request.
... 
> Just back from the Caribbean and catching up.  This is from Henry Beard's
> "Latin for All Occasions" (Lingua Latina Occasionibus Omnibus), and comes out
> as:
> 
> Catapultum habeo.  Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxum
> immane mittam.  (I have a catapult.  Give me all the money, or I will fling
> an enormous rock at your head.)
> 
> Another catapult quote:
> Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscripti catapultus haberunt.
> When catapults are outlawed, only outlaws will have catapults.

Good work spotting it in Beard, Jim. Bad work on the Latin grammar
front, Henry: catapulta, -ae, is a first declension noun, and
hence "catapultum" and "catapultus" (one each in Beard's
sententiae) are impossible forms. In fact, even without a
dictionary you can tell something is wrong in the 2nd sentence: no
Latin noun can have both -ae and -us forms: only 1st declension
nouns have -ae forms, and only 2nd and 4th declension nouns have
-us forms. (If only I had remembered this in time for my  final
exam in Mrs Craik's Latin class in 1962!)





-- 
Jim Reeds, AT&T Labs - Research
Shannon Laboratory, Room C229, Building 103
180 Park Avenue, Florham Park, NJ 07932-0971, USA

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