h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've noted elsewhere in this forum that I hate mottoes and the like, but here are three I've found which seem to me particularly incongruous - I'll give them to the community, just in case my translation is not up to scratch:

Nulla dies sine linea
Meliora sequamur
Vincit qui se vincit

If you're unsure just why they seem incongruous after translating, let me know how you've translated and I'll fill in the details

Nulla dies sine linea
No day without a line/ thread [Yes, dies can be feminine. Nothing incongruous here.]

Meliora sequamur
Let us follow better things. [Nothing incongruous here.]

Vincit qui se vincit
He conquers who conquers himself. [Nothing incongruous here either.]

Okay, I'll tell you why then First one seems odd as a school motto anyway - what are they doing all day, sewing? But the strangest thing about it is that the students are told it means "No day without learning" - I'm fairly sure that isn't the case in classical Latin, and it's nothing I've come across in church/medieval Latin, though I guess it could be somewhere or other.

Second - again, I think it's not much of a motto, except perhaps for a dictatorship. But again, it's the translation the students are given - "Let us strive for better things" Which is entirely possible, I'll grant you, but it's hardly the most usual translation, and when the usual one gives something which isn't very encouraging to an aspiring student...

And now, the last one. Very noble and all that (not that I agree much with the sentiment, but anyway) except that it doesn't quite work - it's the motto for a *girls* school. Not even lots of girls and one single, solitary boy to justify the 'qui'.

But if none of that seems incongruous to you, then maybe it's just me

Oh, right. I didn't read the heading. I didn't realise they were school mottoes. And you didn't say the last one was a girls' school.

I think the first one refers to producing a line of writing.

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While you're here, on another matter I wonder...

Can you say out loud, trilling all the 'r's like a real Roman, the following imperfect passive subjunctives:

QUAERERER
GERERER

and others like them.

I think it's impossible. I can just about get all the 'r's out if I talk slowly and very loudly. But if I'm reading quietly to myself, as we are told the Romans did, I can do nothing with words like this. I also have trouble saying

RURSUS

convincingly, and likewise many other words I can't think of right now. Is it just me?

That's okay, I wasn't having a go, I just thought it would be more fun that way I should have mentioned, perhaps, that I meant incongruous in context, not in linguistic terms. I didn't think about producing a line of writing - even if so, I still think it's a bit tenuous to use as a motto... I imagine, like most mottoes, it's been plucked from some piece of classic writing or other.

Well, yes, but it's not easy - I also speak (a very little!) Finnish, which is likewise replete with trilled r:s. I'm not aware, though (feel free to enlighten me!) of anything that says that one or more of them can't just be tapped rather than trilled, which is rather easier. I alos suspect that, by and large, your average Roman would have just mumbled over them wherever possible, especially in reading, only making the effort when it was required to differentiate meaning. I know there are some people who have said that they didn't and indeed couldn't have mumbled in such a way, but I would ask those people if they've ever actually listened to anyone, anywhere, speak .

That said, there's no guarantee that I do say them properly, and much of the time I'd just leave the last r to itself, pronouncing a 'schwa' instead. And as you said, it's much easier to do it when you're 'declaiming' - loudly and slowly. I've never met anyone who can speak Latin rapidly and normally - not that I've met many people who can speak any Latin at all!

With regards to "vincit qui se vincit": couldn't the "vincit" be either masculine or feminine -- and thus, "she conquers who conquers herself"? Then it wouldn't matter if it was a girl's school or not.

'vincit' certainly can be masculine or feminine, but 'qui', as the relative pronoun, can only be masculine (singular or plural) - qui also gets used in referring to groups where there's even so much a s a single male among 400000 females, but, at least so far as students go, you wouldn't expect too many males at a girl's school!

Then what would be the feminine form of "qui"?

quae