Satis polito?

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citizen
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Satis polito?

Post by citizen »

The leader of a right-wing populist party here in Sweden came out with a new book today, called Satis polito. In an interview he admits he don't know how to pronounce it, but says it should be translated as "wellpolished enough" – meaning that he indeed fits in the parliament and amongst the political elite (as opposed to his background, from a small town, being a leader of a marginalized party and so on).

Now I'm just a beginner of Latin, so I don't know, but something tells me it's not entirely gramatically correct, this title. Is it?

Qimmik
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Re: Satis polito?

Post by Qimmik »

What's strange about it is that polito is ablative or dative, where you'd expect the nominative case in the absence of any context. He probably found the phrase in a quotation where it modified a noun in the ablative or dative case.

citizen
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Re: Satis polito?

Post by citizen »

Right. So it should rather be satis politus (since it's a man) and satis polito would just raise the question of what or who is polished?

adrianus
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Re: Satis polito?

Post by adrianus »

polito is also a future active imperative of the verb polio
et imperativo modo activâ voce futuro tempore

Post scriptum

A mistake it could be, or also a parenthetical ablative absolute: "He [/the man] having been sufficiently polished/educated, ...[the following things happened]"

Mendatum vel ablativum absolutum ut interpositio.
I'm writing in Latin hoping for correction, and not because I'm confident in how I express myself. Latinè scribo ut ab omnibus corrigar, non quod confidenter me exprimam.

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