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

Anyone know this? My dictionary is not up to the task.

I don't think it has one, does it?

I thought it translated as "Gods from the machine" and came from Greek drama where the Gods would appear from above and magically fix everything. Sort of unsatisfying, really. Bit like Popeye cartoons - deus ex spinachina....

Otto

But Deus tranlates as God or a God, rather than Gods. So it should be possible to make a plural by changing Deus into its plural form. If it is standard 1st Declension, then it is Dei, but I think Deus might be an exception. The rest of the phrase should stay the same.

"Deus ex machina" means "God from the machine" (or a machine. The Romans didn't have 'the' or 'a'.) So the plural would depend on whether you want God or Machine (or both) to be plural. So here goes:

Dei ex machina - Gods from the machine
Deus ex machinis - God from the machines
Dei ex machinis - Gods from the machines

The plural of "machina" could be "machinae" if it's used in the nominative form. It becomes "machinis" if the form is ablative, which is quite possible here, since the sense if from a place.

"Deus" definitely becomes "dei" in the nominative plural.

I can't remember all the rules and it's twenty years since I gave up Latin, so I'd go with Cheerful Dragon. She went to a good school

(How did it go? "Amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant ...)

.... remembers a certain scene from the Life of Brian....

"Romanes Eunt Domus"

amo, amas, amatitagain!

Madent, amo is a verb, mensa is a noun. You're right about the conjugation of amo, though. Mensa (being feminine) goes:

Mensa (nom), mensam (acc), mensae (gen), mensae (dat) mensa (abl)
Mensae, mensas, mensarum, mensis, mensis.

'ex' takes ablative, meaning from a place.

Yes, I did go to a good school. (How did you know, BTW?) I also have a very good... er... um... Oh, yes, memory. I almost forgot!

Oops! Mensa should have been machina, but the endings are the same. Mensa was the first noun I learned in Latin... more years ago than I'm prepared to admit!

Hoo tells a fabulous story about a commedian, it could be Barry Cryer, who said he had been to a rugby match where the supporters were so posh they chanted "'ere we go, 'ere we gas, 'ere we gat!"

B

Thanks for your input on this folks

*Flashes of -i, -isti, -it, -imus, -istis, -erunt*


And believe it or not, that(apart from a few English word roots) is all I can remember of two years of latin

Was it Jasper Carrot who did the brummie as latin thing? Vaguely remember it having something to do with the 'hark at him' phrase for various pronouns(?) which became
arkatim
arkater
arkatem

Or summats. Any one remember?

I know that many words have latin origins, but is there really any point in teaching latin in schools?

Well, not many do, but I guess if you want to go on to study the classics or work within certain periods of history then knowing the latin language would be a definite requirement. My school stopped it about 5 years before I went there so I never did learn it. My father did, but remembers little and all I know from that really is the nil illegitimus thingy and 'tempus don't half fuggit' (pronounced temp-us fugg-it with hard 'g' )

I thought it was a total waste of time, two years compulsory latin, and I cant remember a thing, and even if I did what would be the point?

Cheerful Dragon

Our paths have crossed before and when we compared notes we found that while I went to one half of the foundation, you went to the other (but not at the same time)!

Like I said, I gave up Latin and would go with your version cos it seems right

When we did nouns, I remember declining Nom, Voc, Acc, Gen, Dat, Abl and then the same for the plurals.

I must confess, I had watched the Life of Brian the night before I posted

Bob

That's why I gave it up too

Having said that, I can see that studying Latin does give an advantage with modern languages as a lot of modern languages borrow so much from Latin. A consequence of the Roman Empire I'm sure.

It also provides a useful vehicle to teach grammar.

I did a whole year of latin (and dropped it and german as soon as possiblelanguages) All I can remember is ego sum canis and sniggering at a story about the slave girl *pleasing* grumio and grumio *pleasing* the slave girl

My school was *not* a good school (we made the front page of the Telegraph when I was in 2nd yr for a stabbing and came 2681 of 3571 in the GCSE league tables) - but we did have a good latin teacher (also taught history and was a deputy head and head of sixth form and careers adviser) and we had the option of taking latin during the 3rd yr (instead of doing an extra hour of PE a week) most people did it for a yr and then dropped it when gcse options came up but there were always a few who took it through to a level and they did surprisingly well.