Unus nemo
Johannes Patruus
Wilby (Guide p.206) translates "Unus nemo te diligit" as "There is nobody
who does not like you".
But doesn't it mean the opposite - "There isn't anyone at all that likes you"?
Patruus
Ed Cryer
Most definitely!!
What's the context of the thing in Wilby?
Ed
Evertjan.
"No one likes you"
"No one in particular likes you"
================
Compare Tacitus Annalae: 14:40
"Sententiae Cassii ut nemo unus contra ire ausus est, ita .."
[Though 'no one on his own' dared to contradict the words of Cassius,
still ...]
--
Evertjan.
The Netherlands.
(Please change the x'es to dots in my emailaddress)
Johannes Patruus
> On 11/01/2011 19:11, Johannes Patruus wrote:
>>
>> Wilby (Guide p.206) translates "Unus nemo te diligit" as "There is
>> nobody who does not like you".
>>
>> But doesn't it mean the opposite - "There isn't anyone at all that likes
>> you"?
>>
>> Patruus
>
> Most definitely!!
Thanks.
> What's the context of the thing in Wilby?
It occurs in a list of "Various familiar expressions", and is the
penultimate item on page 206 of the PDF linked to here:
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.language.latin/msg/9b5b74d7d2471343
The book provides ample material for stumbling over, and has me tripping
and sliding all over the place!
> Ed
Patruus
Johannes Patruus
> Johannes Patruus wrote on 11 jan 2011 in alt.language.latin:
>
>> Wilby (Guide p.206) translates "Unus nemo te diligit" as "There is
>> nobody who does not like you".
>>
>> But doesn't it mean the opposite - "There isn't anyone at all that
>> likes you"?
>
> "No one likes you"
>
> "No one in particular likes you"
>
>
> ================
>
> Compare Tacitus Annalae: 14:40
>
> "Sententiae Cassii ut nemo unus contra ire ausus est, ita .."
>
> [Though 'no one on his own' dared to contradict the words of Cassius,
> still ...]
As far as I can make out from the grammars and dictionaries, the function
of "unus" in the expressions "unus nemo" and "nemo unus" is simply
emphatic, which suggests that "no one at all" would be the preferred
translation.
Patruus
Evertjan.
Generally true, I think,
me lacking any other classic example at present.
However in the Tacitus context, the group protested by murmuring,
but no "one" dared to stick his nose out.
Think of the litteral meaning of English "no ONE" as compared to
"UNUS ne-homo", "ne-homo" or ne-"hemo" being suggested as the
etymological source od "nemo".
Ed Cryer
That download stuck on 99.9% for ages.
Well, it seems just wrong to me. Could there be a "non" missing. A quick
survey at phrases surrounding it passed my assessment with 100% ok.
What causes you the tripping and sliding?
Ed
Johannes Patruus
> On 11/01/2011 20:28, Johannes Patruus wrote:
>> On 11/01/2011 19:50, Ed Cryer wrote:
>>> On 11/01/2011 19:11, Johannes Patruus wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Wilby (Guide p.206) translates "Unus nemo te diligit" as "There is
>>>> nobody who does not like you".
>>>>
>>>> But doesn't it mean the opposite - "There isn't anyone at all that likes
>>>> you"?
>>>>
>>>> Patruus
>>>
>>> Most definitely!!
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>>> What's the context of the thing in Wilby?
>>
>> It occurs in a list of "Various familiar expressions", and is the
>> penultimate item on page 206 of the PDF linked to here:
>> http://groups.google.com/group/alt.language.latin/msg/9b5b74d7d2471343
>>
>> The book provides ample material for stumbling over, and has me tripping
>> and sliding all over the place!
>>
>>> Ed
>>
>> Patruus
>>
>
> That download stuck on 99.9% for ages.
I don't recall that happening on dial-up!
> Well, it seems just wrong to me. Could there be a "non" missing. A quick
> survey at phrases surrounding it passed my assessment with 100% ok.
He probably just erred in drafting a double negative into the English.
Dangerous things, double negatives!
> What causes you the tripping and sliding?
Apart from typographical errors, some of the English translations are
unhelpfully paraphrastic. For instance "Haud muto factum" on page 178 he
renders "I am not sorry for having done that", and I was further confused
by the first translation that Google found - "Nothing happens by being
mute"!!!
I eventually settled for "What is done I do not wish to change".
More baffling still is "Aperire cuniculos" = "To baffle a design" on page
217. Godammit, I don't even have a clue what the English means!
Just two of many difficulties. Most I can resolve myself. Not all.
> Ed
Patruus the Easily Baffled
Ed Cryer
I found "haud muto factum" in Terence's "Andria".
SI. ego postquam te emi, a parvolo ut semper tibi 35
apud me iusta et clemens fuerit servitus
scis. feci ex servo ut esses libertus mihi,
propterea quod servibas liberaliter:
quod habui summum pretium persolvi tibi.
SO. in memoria habeo. SI. haud muto factum. SO. gaudeo 40
si tibi quid feci aut facio quod placeat, Simo,
et id gratum <fui>sse advorsum te habeo gratiam.
I take "muto" as 1st person singular; I don't change the deed, ie I
don't intend to change it.
A "cuniculus" is a mine in Caesar, dug up to and under city walls.
Reveal the mines = bring the subterfuge workings to light.
Ed
Johannes Patruus
> nemo that don't mean the same, but we have non nemo and nemo non meaning
> different things, viz. multi and omnes. Maybe something like that is
> going on when the order of unus and nemo are switched. Googling on "nemo
> unus" and "unus nemo" doesn't turn up any evidence for this however.
>
> Eduardus
I found "no single person" for "nemo unus" in OLD but could not find a
unique definition for "unus nemo". The print format of the OLD makes it,
for me, very difficult to use, and the promised electronic edition shows
no sign of emerging from its perpetual latency:
http://www.logos.com/product/5971/oxford-latin-dictionary
Scheller (who?) lists both phrases under the heading "pleonasm" (what?!) -
http://www.archive.org/stream/copiouslatingram02scheuoft#page/306/mode/1up
Achtung: We are told that the best Latin grammars are, natürlich, in German -
http://classicslibrarian.wordpress.com/2010/10/07/the-best-greek-and-latin-grammars-in-germa/
Patruus
How to generate an income stream from the white stuff -
http://sppiblog.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Snowman-Offer2.jpg
Johannes Patruus
Thanks. Am I to take it that this metaphorical usage of 'aperire
cuniculos' is postclassical?
And I can't find any sense of "to baffle" in the OED to justify Wilby's
use of it.
> Ed
Patruus
Ed Cryer
Ah, come now, I can't see your complaint here. Surely the prime meaning
of "baffle" is to "hinder" or "frustrate". When the German guards in
Stalag Luft # (whatever number it was) discovered one of the three
tunnels "Tom, Dick & Harry", it baffled the plans of the escape
committee a bit (Vivat Steve McQueen; he was excellent!).
If I just said something like "I was getting away with it quite well
until the wife found the tunnels" you'd grab that immediately as a
metaphorical usage, even though you'd never heard that particular
metaphor before. If somebody turned round and said "Where were the
tunnels?" you'd accuse him of being far too literal-minded and incapable
of making that logical break into higher concepts.
Shakespeare penned "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune". I doubt it
was a known metaphor, he coined it; but he would have been understood by
the first audience. When it came to "sea of troubles" that metaphor was
very well known (Latin's "mare malorum").
Cicero used "cuniculus" quite a lot in the sense of "cunning scheme".
Look it up in L&S.
Here's one very metaphorical passage; "Quid? si pater fana expilet,
cuniculos agat ad aerarium, indicetne id magistratibus filius?"
Ed
Johannes Patruus
I still can't reconcile bringing a plan to light ("aperire") with
frustrating it ("to baffle"). They're different concepts.
> If I just said something like "I was getting away with it quite well until
> the wife found the tunnels" you'd grab that immediately as a metaphorical
> usage, even though you'd never heard that particular metaphor before. If
> somebody turned round and said "Where were the tunnels?" you'd accuse him
> of being far too literal-minded and incapable of making that logical break
> into higher concepts.
> Shakespeare penned "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune". I doubt it
> was a known metaphor, he coined it; but he would have been understood by
> the first audience. When it came to "sea of troubles" that metaphor was
> very well known (Latin's "mare malorum").
>
> Cicero used "cuniculus" quite a lot in the sense of "cunning scheme". Look
> it up in L&S.
Yes, I had failed to notice the reference to "secret devices" at the very
end of the L&S article.
> Here's one very metaphorical passage; "Quid? si pater fana expilet,
> cuniculos agat ad aerarium, indicetne id magistratibus filius?"
When I look it up here - http://goo.gl/bWgdt - I find "cuniculos"
translated as "wedges".
Sorry, but once again I find myself baffled!
Can I get a brain transplant on the NHS?
> Ed
Patruus
Ed Cryer
I think I'd feel the same myself if I'd been battered from pillar to
post by the same mangled dictionaries and translations that you've shown
us. And I guess that's only a part of what you could reveal.
I'm lost for words to explain my feelings about all that. Perhaps I
could just stick to netiquette with *&(879&**&*(&*&( and the like.
Anyway, back to words and thoughts; a nice antidote to feelings and
inexpressible emotions. Freud et al. have told us that it doesn't really
work; that we repress things in the brain, and unless we give them an
outing they swell up like boils and burst to bring us down, like the
gods in ancient Greek tragedies.
I'll try some primal screaming sometime when I'm out of earshot of the
neighbours. I have a pretty decent reputation round here and I want to
keep it. And that seems to involve retaining some gravitas et dignitas
for them to look up unto. I doubt they'd accept my explanation that I
was trying to release pent-up emotion caused by frustration with online
Latin dictionaries & translations.
That latest one seems to have mistaken "cuniculus" for "cuneus"; another
very Caesarian word (Can't you just see all those generations of English
gentlemen sitting on the rough benches of schoolrooms and reading De
Bello Gallico? Being prepared for empire while being told it was
excellent Latin prose!). A "wedge" was a military formation used for
quick breaking-through of an enemy line (alii cuneo facto ut
celeriter perrumpant - JC).
I'll give you support. We're in this together, as David Cameron keeps
telling us.
Ed
Johannes Patruus
Frustration is also one of my principal life-experiences, and were it not
for the neighbours, my screams would be one helluva lot more primal!
> That latest one seems to have mistaken "cuniculus" for "cuneus"; another
> very Caesarian word (Can't you just see all those generations of English
> gentlemen sitting on the rough benches of schoolrooms and reading De Bello
> Gallico? Being prepared for empire while being told it was excellent Latin
> prose!). A "wedge" was a military formation used for quick
> breaking-through of an enemy line (alii cuneo facto ut
> celeriter perrumpant - JC).
>
> I'll give you support. We're in this together, as David Cameron keeps
> telling us.
What a song and dance! -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDHYZtwjFTs
Walter Miller translates the Cicero as: "Again, suppose a father were
robbing temples or making underground passages to the treasury, should a
son inform the officers of it?" -
http://www.constitution.org/rom/de_officiis.htm
That makes good sense, but is not consistent with your characterisation of
the passage as very metaphorical.
It also makes it seem very odd that the first translator (William Johnson)
should have gone so spectacularly off the rails.
> Ed
Patruus
Ed Cryer
I suppose you could take it literally; like bank-robbers digging their
way into the vaults of a bank.
"Pillaging temples and tunnelling into the treasury".
Ed