"Protect me from what I want"

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Dingbats
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"Protect me from what I want"

Post by Dingbats »

I feel like I should know the translation of this sentence, but I'm not sure. Which of these is it? (Ignore my possible word order errors and vocabulary.)

Protege me a quo volo.
Protege me a quo velim.

I'm not sure about what mood to use...

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benissimus
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Post by benissimus »

Although in English we often leave out the antecedent of a relative clause, it is necessary in Latin. In English, the word "what" never has an antecedent (except in some obscure dialects, e.g. "I ain't gonna git yoo that thar present what yoo axed fer"), so you must be particularly careful to supply it when translating. Therefore, you must translate this as though it were "protect me from that which I want". Unless you mean to refer to a single specific thing which you want, I would go with the subjunctive of general characteristic.
flebile nescio quid queritur lyra, flebile lingua murmurat exanimis, respondent flebile ripae

Dingbats
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Post by Dingbats »

...ok. So should it be Protege me a quo quid velim?

Mulciber
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Post by Mulciber »

Protege me ab eo quod velim.

Dingbats
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Post by Dingbats »

Oh, of course! Thanks.

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Post by Turpissimus »

Protege me ab eo quod velim.
quod is used for relative adjectives, isn't it? I thought quid was the relative pronoun. So ab eo quid velim.

I always remember it thus -

quid rhymes with id/it, which is a pronoun
quod rhymes with odd, which is an adjectives

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Post by Barrius »

benissimus wrote:"I ain't gonna git yoo that thar present what yoo axed fer"
I resemble that remark :lol:

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Post by Episcopus »

qui quae quod is the relative pronoun you can't get a 'relative adjective' and quis quis quid is the interrogative pronoun. qui quae quod is the interrogative adjective, where I think the confusion may lie.

Is it the same in swedish do you guys use det som (that which) and you often omit som. If so then latin is the other way round. It omits 'that', but never 'which'.

Pro! And your phrase bears so much truth you have no idea. Sometimes indeed people want something to such a crazy extent that they can not control themselves and need protection. Thankfully this is not a case of mine, but could be if I were retarded.

Turpissimus
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Post by Turpissimus »

Yeah you're right. Quod is used for both the relative pronoun and adjective (which does exist, even though it might be called something else in your grammar). With interrogative and indefinite pronoun/adjectives it is the quid which is the pronoun and the quod which is the adjective.

Damn, that always confused me.

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Post by Episcopus »

If we might avoid the grammatical poffywoffle used by insecure english guys who can not pronounce latin with anything but a pass the broccoli timothy accent, ab eo quid velim just doesn't sound latin. Verbrauchen Sie die Sprachgefuhl! I hope this noun is feminine otherwise I will be embarrassing myself. See the german teacher never writes the bloody gender because my A Level class don't know what gender or case or anything is. So I have to sit there and guess. Or go to the toilet to escape the hell, crusty predictably yellow T-Ped walls I would rather lick than go to german. Sorry I am rambling.

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Post by whiteoctave »

Although in English we often leave out the antecedent of a relative clause, it is necessary in Latin.
If this be a general statement, it is surely a simplification of the truth: it is common idiom in Latin to omit the antecedent: quod constituerat fecit, quos conuocauerant adhorati sunt, qui uult esse grauis multa legere debet and the well-known bis dat qui cito dat are all correctly said to be wanting their antecedent but are all correct Latin. The general rule is that it is fine to omit the antecedent if they agree in case. In verse the rule can be extended and a quick look at Lucretius, say, brings up a number of examples of an antecedent in a different case being omitted.
Since we are in the sober world of prose, however, it is indeed right for the antecedent here to be expressed.
Everyone seems perfectly happy with protege, but literally 'veiling one' from something does not strike me as the most natural expression, and I only know of one example wherein it takes ab. retineo or prohibeo perhaps express the notion of holding one back from their desires (and thus protecting them) more fittingly. After all, it is not as though 'quod uelim' can attack the subject of its own accord, but rather it can only have destructive force if the agent actually is an agent. Restraint, then, is called for.

~D
p.s. as in Greek, attraction of the relative is occasionally possible (e.g. Livy's Thebae quoque ipsae, quod Boeotiae caput est), and verse would occasionally allow of retine me a quo uolo/uelim.

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Post by Dingbats »

Thanks for your thoughts about which word to use for protect, and the antecedent stuff. Your spelling of volo confused me though!

Episcopus
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Post by Episcopus »

whiteoctave wrote: qui uult esse grauis multa legere debet

~D

and verse would occasionally allow of retine me a quo uolo/uelim.
Do you mean that he who wants to become heavy i.e. fat must read a lot. For then you can't really exercise can you. :wink:

a quo volo is :oops: I never thought I'd see that...

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Post by Odysseus »

This has got me interested. The quote can be from one thing only, and that's the Placebo song. Is this you translating to, or translating from a latin version they've written? They've done a French once, but I haven't heard of a latin one.

Dingbats
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Post by Dingbats »

Lol, yes it's the Placebo song. They haven't written a Latin version as far as I know. :P

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