Pardon my Latin but...
rev...@vms.csd.mu.edu
>How did Romans say---
>
>"Fuck you."
I don't believe that I have ever seen it in the sense that the English uses
but a literal translation would be
*futue te*
It certainly seems to be an obscenity, appearing as it does in Catullus
and Martial (97.9 and 10.81.1 respectively)
There are some related words that seem to show some flexibility
fututio, onis, f. "a fuck"
fututor, oris and fututrix, icis, "fucker"
and then there is
fututus "fucked"
perhaps more in line with the sense of "fuck you" would be the first line
of Catullus 16
"pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo"
upon which Merrill notes (p. 36) "these verbs are here not to be understood
in the literal sense, but only as conveying vague threats, in the gross
language of that day"
Probably the best place to check is in "The Latin Sexual Vocabulary"
(sorry, don't remember the author off hand)
"fututum" came up in my Latin class recently when a student gave the
princ. parts of sum as sum esse fui fututus at which I had to laugh
some.
Adrastus
>
>Was there a formal and a street version of it?
>
>And did they have a word as flexible in application
>as 'fuck' is in English?
>
>Were they as sensitive to the use of vulgarisms as
>we (sometimes) appear to be?
>
>Thanks, as always, for any help.
>
>(jk)
>
>
Jim Wright
>"Fuck you."
>Was there a formal and a street version of it?
>And did they have a word as flexible in application
>as 'fuck' is in English?
>Were they as sensitive to the use of vulgarisms as
>we (sometimes) appear to be?
>Thanks, as always, for any help.
If I'm not mistaken, someone once wrote an entire book on Latin obscenities.
I don't have her bibliography at work, but Colleen McCullough appears to have
made liberal use of many of these terms in her series on the Roman Republic,
"First man in Rome" / "Grass Crown" / "Fortune's Favorites". (BTW, anyone
know when the fourth book is scheduled for release?)
I think wherever you find an organized military, particularly with a
noncommissioned officer training the troops, you're likely to find a rich
collection of vulgarity in the native tongue. <G>
Jim
** Jim Wright [jlwr...@xmission.com] **
** Duc, sequere, aut de via decede. **
** (Lead, follow, or get out of the way.) **
** Home Page: http://www.xmission.com/~jlwright **
floaiza
>
>How did Romans say---
>
>"Fuck you."
>
poems with a connotation similar to that. He says <irrumabo te>.
In the book "The Latin Sexual Vocabulary" by J.N. Adams, the author explains
that <irrumare> meant to force someone to perform oral sex on you, and that
there was a pun in which the one guy threatens the other with <irrumatio>
but the other happily responds <fellabo te!>.
The classical verb for the sexual act was <futuere>, a verb of the second
declension, if I am not mistaken, and thus conjugated like <monere>.
Assuming that <fuck you> is a shortened form of <I'll fuck you> as a threat,
then, in analogy to Catullus, you would say <te futuebo!>.
The Romans were also quite specific as to the different varieties of
fucking you were intending to do. So, if what you want to fuck is other
part than the <cunnus> you may threaten the other person with a <pedicabo te!>.
Anyway, you get the idea :-)
Francisco
Peter Gainsford
>
>And did they have a word as flexible in application
>as 'fuck' is in English?
>
>Were they as sensitive to the use of vulgarisms as
>we (sometimes) appear to be?
>
>Thanks, as always, for any help.
>
Pardon my Greek but...
In Petronius' _Satyricon_ (in the Cena Trimalchionis section) one of the
characters uses the word "laecasin" (Greek "laikazein") in precisely the
same sense as the English word. I forget the name of the character -
I think it's roundabout chapter 42-45. The character describes having a
hot bath and telling the cold, "laecasin" (the infinitive, not the
imperative). In the context, this is a very colloquial usage. LSJ
defines "laikazein" as "to wench", a typicl LSJian euphemism.
Mouse
Grzegorz Kondrak
: Catullus, I believe, uses the verb <irrumare> as a threat in one of his
: poems with a connotation similar to that. He says <irrumabo te>.
: In the book "The Latin Sexual Vocabulary" by J.N. Adams, the author explains
: that <irrumare> meant to force someone to perform oral sex on you, and that
: there was a pun in which the one guy threatens the other with <irrumatio>
: but the other happily responds <fellabo te!>.
In my Latin textbook "irrumator" was explained as "bugger" which suggest
anal sex rather than oral. What does it mean literally?
: The Romans were also quite specific as to the different varieties of
: fucking you were intending to do. So, if what you want to fuck is other
: part than the <cunnus> you may threaten the other person with a <pedicabo
: te!>
: Anyway, you get the idea :-)
Well, I don't. Intercourse with feet? Kinky, but threaten a man with it seems
a bit ridiculous. Again, what does it mean?
G.K.
Richard M. Alderson III
future indicative is futuam, not *futuebo.
For the person asking about *irrumo*, it's "to force someone to fellate", not
"to bugger." The latter is paedico (later pedico).
So Catullus' threat "irrumabo vos et paedicabo" is "I'll stick it down y'all's
throats and (then) shove it up your asses."
--
Rich Alderson You know the sort of thing that you can find in any dictionary
of a strange language, and which so excites the amateur philo-
logists, itching to derive one tongue from another that they
know better: a word that is nearly the same in form and meaning
as the corresponding word in English, or Latin, or Hebrew, or
what not.
--J. R. R. Tolkien,
alde...@netcom.com _The Notion Club Papers_
Richard M. Alderson III
Charles Vance / Lisa Connelly <vanc...@acpub.duke.edu> writes:
>If my ever contracting memory serves, "irrumare" was a verb initially applied
>to actions taken by cows to get their newly-born calves to suckle. Anyone
>else know?
Hmm. I don't recall seeing any such definition in Lewis & Short, or in my 19th
century Andrews, either of which would have been happy, I should think, to
report a non-obscene meaning. As I recall (they're at home), L&S defined it as
"to make a beast of oneself." Thank you, V. R.
>Oh, and read Martial as well as Catullus for a full education in Latin
>underground vocabulary.
Oh, yes, most certainly!
floaiza
In a previous posting I had speculated that:
>The classical verb for the sexual act was <futuere>, a verb of the second
>declension, if I am not mistaken, and thus conjugated like <monere>.
Apologies!
This is a verb of the third declension, thus it is conjugated
as <regere> and <fuck you> as a shortened form of <I'll fuck you> would be
rendered as <te futuam!>.
Sorry. This happens when your dictionary is published by some idiot puritan
who feels that the word fuck is beyond the pale, and then you guess!
Francisco
Charles Vance / Lisa Connelly
> floaiza (flo...@ida.org) wrote:
> : Catullus, I believe, uses the verb <irrumare> as a threat in one of his
> : poems with a connotation similar to that. He says <irrumabo te>.
>
> : In the book "The Latin Sexual Vocabulary" by J.N. Adams, the author explains
> : that <irrumare> meant to force someone to perform oral sex on you, and that
> : there was a pun in which the one guy threatens the other with <irrumatio>
> : but the other happily responds <fellabo te!>.
>
If my ever contracting memory serves, "irrumare" was a verb initially
applied to actions taken by cows to get their newly-born calves to
suckle. Anyone else know?
Oh, and read Martial as well as Catullus for a full education in Latin
underground vocabulary.
Charles
Tristram Scott
: So Catullus' threat "irrumabo vos et paedicabo" is "I'll stick it down
Catullus was indeed a true poet.
--
Tristram Scott, Dept of Management| E-Mail t.s...@cantua.canterbury.ac.nz
University of Canterbury | or bus...@cantua.canterbury.ac.nz
Christchurch, New Zealand | Phone +64 3 364-2656 Fax +64 3 364-2020
R W Odlin
>In my Latin textbook "irrumator" was explained as "bugger" which suggest
anal
>sex rather than oral. What does it mean literally?
technical term at law, and includes (among other things) animal contacts as
well.
The Buecheler-Riese exploration of Pompeiian graffiti turned up dry, btw,
for anyone who was awaiting revelations from that source.
floaiza
>: The Romans were also quite specific as to the different varieties of
>: fucking you were intending to do. So, if what you want to fuck is other
>: part than the <cunnus> you may threaten the other person with a <pedicabo
>: te!>
>
>: Anyway, you get the idea :-)
>
>Well, I don't. Intercourse with feet? Kinky, but threaten a man with it seems
>a bit ridiculous. Again, what does it mean?
>
>G.K.
Oh dear! Oh dear! We are dealing with the illiterati here! <pedicatio>
is from the Greek PAIDIKOS, or TA PAIDIKA and has nothing to do with feet,
which is derived from <pes-pedis>, a venerable Indogermanic root quite
removed from the part being fucked here.
PAIDIKOS and all those other words like <pedagogue>,<pederast>, and <pedophile>
refer to the idea that homosexual sex, including anal sex, was something that took
place in Greece among adult men and <boys>. The Greek word for boy was
PAIDOS, I believe.
I hope you get the idea now!
Francisco
rev...@vms.csd.mu.edu
>OK, the next quiz question is for the historical linguists out there.
>
>Surely "pedico"/"paedico" is related to "podex" through some clever etymology,
>but I don't know my Latin historical linguistics enough to guess what it is.
>Anybody got a clue?
>
Someone has probably already jumped on this, but *Paedico* comes from
the Greek *paidikos* (L&S list this derivation) as in pederasty etc. This
is from the Greek *pais, paidos* for *child, boy*. A connection with
*podex* seems pretty much impossible and unnecessary
L&S gives podex > pordex > pedo ! (pedo =*I fart* which is related to
greek perdo of the same meaning. I imagine this must have given Romans with
the cognomen of *Pedo* no end of jokes at their expense (though the _e_ in the
verb is long versus the short _e_ of the name)
GR
>
>Edward Heil............edheil@email.unc.edu
> | "Opera should be banned from television.|
> | It must be obscene, or they wouldn't |
> | have to sing it in a foreign language. |
> | And we can't let children think |
> | it's okay to dress like vikings |
> | and go around hollering." --Dogbert |
Peter Gainsford
>Oh dear! Oh dear! We are dealing with the illiterati here! <pedicatio>
>is from the Greek PAIDIKOS, or TA PAIDIKA and has nothing to do with feet,
>which is derived from <pes-pedis>, a venerable Indogermanic root quite
>removed from the part being fucked here.
>PAIDIKOS and all those other words like <pedagogue>,<pederast>, and <pedophile>
>refer to the idea that homosexual sex, including anal sex, was something that took
>place in Greece among adult men and <boys>. The Greek word for boy was
>PAIDOS, I believe.
>
>I hope you get the idea now!
>
>Francisco
In fact the normal mode of male homosexual intercourse in Greece was not anal sex, but intercrural. Sorry I can't give a reference =
for that off the top of my head - perhaps a book such as "The Maculate Muse" might point you to a reference. It's visibly intercrur=
al in various depictions of sex on Greek vases that I've seen. Anyone know what the usual mode for male homosexual sex was among th=
e Romans? Words like "irrumabo" certainly seem to imply it was anal.
Also: <paidagogia>, meaning "education", does not _necessarily_ refer to sex, although it would include it fairly often (to judge f=
rom Plato's discussion of education in the _Symposium_, etc).
And yes, <paidos> is the genitive of <pais> (stem <paid->). (I dread to think that the Romans might have made a false etymological =
connection between <pedicare> and <pes, pedis> and acted accordingly.)
Incidentally - I think it has been thought by some that when Herodotos writes of Peisistratos(?) having sex with his wife "ou kata n=
omon", "not in the customary/socially-acceptable manner", thus causing all manner of political problems, he may have been referring =
to anal sex, - not that that's especially relevant. It's wonderful the things that professors start telling you about at parties wh=
en they're getting drunk. Does anyone know anything more on that subject?
Yours
Petermouse
Stephen Trzaskoma
pjga...@unixg.ubc.ca writes:
>In fact the normal mode of male homosexual intercourse in Greece was not
anal
>sex, but intercrural. Sorry I can't give a reference =
>for that off the top of my head - perhaps a book such as "The Maculate
Muse"
>might point you to a reference. It's visibly intercrur=
Homosexuality_ and any number of other places) The problem is that vase
paintings are notoriously unphotographic and there is an awful lot of
discussion about the anus in our sources; for example the lovely insult:
euruproktos.
Ed Heil
>
>Oh dear! Oh dear! We are dealing with the illiterati here! <pedicatio>
>is from the Greek PAIDIKOS, or TA PAIDIKA and has nothing to do with feet,
>which is derived from <pes-pedis>, a venerable Indogermanic root quite
>removed from the part being fucked here.
>PAIDIKOS and all those other words like <pedagogue>,<pederast>, and
<pedophile>
>refer to the idea that homosexual sex, including anal sex, was something that
took
>place in Greece among adult men and <boys>. The Greek word for boy was
>PAIDOS, I believe.
>
>I hope you get the idea now!
Well, I feel foolish now for connecting it to "podex." But then when I
thought of the idea I didn't realize "paedico" had a diphthong (I thought it
was pedico) so I was on the wrong track to begin with.
I guess my knowledge of Latin swears just isn't what it might be.
I suppose it'll come with time.
Edward Hopkins
(books about games)) on the subject of Ludus Doudecim Scriptorum,
it's stated that numerous boards have been found at archeological
sites throughout the former Roman Empire, but only three boards
are actually cited:
A "beginner" board found at Ostia:
C C C C C C B B B B B B
A A A A A A A A A A A A
D D D D D D E E E E E E
A board found in Rome proper:
L E V A T E D A L O C V R I S E U P G E T O U T
L V D E R E N E S C I S Y O U C A N N O T W I N
I D I O T A R E C E D E L A Y M A N G O A W A Y
And one found in Thamugadi:
V E N A R I L A V A R I T O H U N T T O S W I M
L U D E R E R I D E R E T O P L A Y T O G R I N
O C C E S T V I V E R E T H I S I S T O L I V E
What kind of a word is "occ"?
Has anyone published a list of some of the other boards found?
Can anyone tell me of an specific passages in Roman literature
that mention this game?
One source describes a two-panel cartoon that was painted on a
wall in a tavern in Pompeii. Two men are playing this game.
In the first panel, the one holding the dice cup say, "Exsi!"
The other points at the dice, saying, "Non tria, dvas est!"
In the second panel they're fighting, and the innkeeper is
saying, "Itis foras rixsatis."
Please tell me if my guesses about this are correct:
1. The lower case and the exclamation points were not present
on the wall in Pompeii.
2. The "speech balloons" are the Vulgar Latin equivalent of
"Exsum", "Non tres, duo est", and "Itus foris rixatus".
-- Ed Hopkins
hop...@dg-rtp.dg.com
floaiza
>And one found in Thamugadi:
> V E N A R I L A V A R I T O H U N T T O S W I M
> L U D E R E R I D E R E T O P L A Y T O G R I N
> O C C E S T V I V E R E T H I S I S T O L I V E
>
>What kind of a word is "occ"?
(This is a wild guess) but if the translation is in fact correct, then
what you have is a corrupted form of "HOC" <this>.
Hope this helps :-)
Francisco
Kevin Foss
Yeah, must be for 'hocc.' According to my reference on Latin poetry from
one of my classes: Hoc started as hod-ce, latter to hoc-ce, and finally
hoc. "But in Classical Latin, despite the spelling, the pronunciation,
especially before words beginning with a vowel or h plus a vowel, was
hocc"(1) Thus making the syllable long for scansion and the such.
Maybe a phonetic speller wrote the board, and he habitually dropped his
h's as well. :)
-Kevin
------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin A. Foss -------------------- io2...@maine.maine.edu
------------------------------------------------------------
(1) the quote is from Hornsby's "Reading Latin Poetry," Chapter 2.
Andrew Hackard
never sure what I've posted.)
In article <00991F69...@vms.csd.mu.edu>, <rev...@vms.csd.mu.edu> wrote:
>In article <3rqml3$d...@giga.bga.com>, Jess Karlin <r3wi...@bga.com> writes:
>>How did Romans say---
>>
>>"Fuck you."
>
>I don't believe that I have ever seen it in the sense that the English uses
>but a literal translation would be
>
> *futue te*
I think "fuck you" has more of a "may you be fucked" sense, so probably
a hortatory subjunctive present passive is needed:
"te futuatur".
(I sure hope my students don't see this....)
--
Andrew Hackard | "Sir, you and all others who are looking for
hac...@fc.net | a technical fix to an ethical dilemma are
| doomed to disappointment." --WHMu...@aol.com,
Fight the CDA! | in article <3ruoc5$4...@newsbf02.news.aol.com>
Andrew Gollan
|I think "fuck you" has more of a "may you be fucked" sense, so probably
|a hortatory subjunctive present passive is needed:
| "te futuatur".
I think this would construe (if it can) as "may it be fucked as
respects you". Wouldn't you just want the second person (iussive)
subjuntive: futuaris; or more directly the imperative: futuere or
futuitor (arch.).
--
Q.C. (Queen's Counsellor): A |Andrew Gollan - "Anti-Family and proud of it"
learned associate of a gay man. |Phone: +61 2 698 2322 Fax: +61 2 699 9174
Handbag: A male fashion __ |Softway, GPO Box 305,
accessory of a gay woman. \/ |Strawberry Hills NSW 2012, Australia
floaiza
>
>In <3sfuem$6...@freeside.fc.net> hac...@freeside.fc.net (Andrew Hackard) writes:
>
>|I think "fuck you" has more of a "may you be fucked" sense, so probably
>|a hortatory subjunctive present passive is needed:
>
>| "te futuatur".
>
>I think this would construe (if it can) as "may it be fucked as
>respects you". Wouldn't you just want the second person (iussive)
>subjuntive: futuaris; or more directly the imperative: futuere or
>futuitor (arch.).
I have a hard time believing that when someone yells at you <fuck you!>
gesticulating wildly, or giving you the <digitus prorrectus>, that your
steemed interlocutor has in his mind the so very polite form of <may you
#@&##@! be fucked> or even the more removed and serene <may it be fucked
as respects to you>.
It should be remembered that many of the <obscene> expressions have an
apotropaic function and as such they are intended in a threatening way by
the person who utters them. If you want to scare your opponent off I find
it difficult to countenance that this will be achieved using the forms
suggested.
Maybe the meanings alluded in the posting above deal with less agitated
forms of the <fuck you!> usage in English. As when you say it meaning
<get lost> or <go to hell> or when they are meant as expression of
disgust or displeasure, or just irritation.
Francisco