Ducentesimum Duodevicesimum Latinum Verbum Diei: July 25, 2010

[Christina Wallin]

Theme for this month: Dilecta verba

limen, liminis n.

Definition: threshold, doorstep, sill; lintel; (loosely) the entryway
to a building, a house; (fig) the threshold, verge

Sententia: Vergil's Aeneid 2.242-43

quater ipso in limine portae
substitit atque utero sonitum quater arma dedere;

Four times on the threshold itself of the door it struck and four
times weapons gave a sound from the belly [of the horse].

In this section of the Aeneid, the Trojans are in the process of
bringing the Trojan horse, filled with Greeks, into their city. In
the process of bringing it into Troy, as the above passage states, it
stopped on the threshold 4 times. The number four is significant: in
addition to being a quite large number, it was also an unlucky number,
since the gods instead preferred numbers which divided unevenly. This
striking upon the threshold foreshadows the horrible slaughter of
Trojans while sleeping which is about to occur.

“Limen” is of uncertain etymology. However, it has several
interesting derivatives in English. “Subliminal” is literally “below
the threshold (of consciousness),” and is actually a calque from
German's “unter der Schwelle,” from a psychology textbook by Johann
Friedrich Herbart. Calque borrowings are when words in phrases are
translated word for word from one language into another. Another
word, “eliminate,” comes from “ex” + “limine,” “off of the threshold”--
this word was indeed originally used in this literal sense of pushing
someone out off of the threshold of your house.

NJCL convention starts on the 27th--optimam fortunam to all of you who
are going!