Ducentesimum Tredecimum Latinum Verbum Diei: June 20, 2010

[Christina Wallin]

I'd like to start off by wishing the LVD “Felicem Natalem Diem,” since
last Friday marked the third year since its inception! 3 years and
212 verba later, thank you all for receiving the LVD! If you know
anyone who would be interested in starting to receive it, please tell
them either to email me (at cawa...@gmail.com) or join the Google
group directly (at http://groups.google.com/group/latinum_verbum_diei)!

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Theme for this month: Verbs [/Verba]

vitium, vitii n.

Definition: flaw, defect, fault, shortcoming; (in contexts expressing
the effect of a fault on a person or thing) disadvantage; defect of
character, moral failing, vice

Sententia: Cicero, De Officiis 3.26

sin fugiendum id [violare alterum] quidem censet, sed multo illa
peiora, mortem, pauperatem, dolorem, errat in eo, quod ullum aut
corporis aut fortunae vitium vitiis animi gravius existimat.

If, on the other hand, indeed he judges that that [from context, to do
violence to another] ought to be avoided, but that those worse things—
death, poverty, sadness—ought to be avoided more, he errs in that
[judgment], because he considers that any fault of the body or fortune
is worse than shortcomings of the soul.

Marcus Tullius Cicero was a preeminent orator, lawyer, statesman, and
philosopher of the tail end of the Roman Republican era. De Officiis
is an essay, which was originally in the form of a letter to Cicero's
son, Marcus, detailing moral values which he thought his son should
keep in mind while away at university. This work draws heavily from
Greek philosophers, foremost among them the Stoic philosopher
Panaetius of Rhodes. This particular section details the duties to
one's neighbor. Specifically, you should take nothing from another,
nor should you profit from their loss. Those who do wrong to their
neighbors fall into one of two camps: those who do so not thinking it
wrong, and those who know that it is wrong, but do so to escape what
they deem worse situations. Cicero thinks that it would not be wrong
to deem the former lacking a human in his corporeal form (in Cicero's
words, "quid cum eo disseras, qui omnino hominem ex homine tollat?").
The latter is addressed in the above passage. An interesting fact
about De Officiis: it was the second book to be printed on the
Gutenberg printing press, after the Gutenberg Bible!

Etymologically, the origin of “vitium” is not certain. However, it
does have several notable derivatives in English: vituperation, vice,
and vicious.

I must admit, I departed from the announced theme for this week, but
it was to feature both an excellent word and an excellent sentence.
My reasoning (or rather, excuse) for this is that the word “verb”
derives from the Latin word “verbum,” which means simply “word.”
Thus, I can feature any “verbum” I want, riiiiiight? If this does not
satisfy you, then let you be satisfied by the fact that it's the LVD's
birth-week, and so it can do whatever it wants this week! And also,
there is something special about this word—a prize to anyone who spots
it!