"about to" Latine

[adz000]

Does anyone have suggestions, ideas, snappy comments, about how to say in a colloquial manner "I am about to [do xyz]" in Latin?<br /><br />I'm working on translating St. Basil "On the Value of Greek Literature" into Latin and the betacode line is this:<br /><br />tou=to me\n ou)=n au)to\ kai\ cumbouleu/swn h(/kw, ...<br /><br />(Chapter 1, line 24)<br /><br />Nigel Wilson, who I'm convinced knows everything, annotates thus:<br /><br />h(/kw with a future participles seems to be a way of saying 'I am about to'. The only other occurrence I have been able to find is in Galen 9.869 h(/komen e)rou=ntes (the passages cited in LSJ are irrelevant). Perhaps the phrase was part of the lecturer's vocabulary during the Second Sophistic period...<br /><br />Thanks!<br />Adam

[adz000]

ARGH! Too hasty a post, just use the future active participle! Sorry for the bother folks.<br /><br />Perhaps I can salvage my dignity by rephrasing the question: is there a colloquial way to say "am about to do xyz" without using the future active participle?<br /><br />peccavi,<br />Adam

[Keesa]

I wish I knew, but I'm just starting Latin! :-[

[Lumen_et_umbra]

It is very doubtful; Latin has very rigid grammar. Chances are that the future active participle is only means by which one can convey such a sense in English.<br /><br />p.s. I hate English for being so colloquial. It is not any particular facet of Latin, which makes Latin difficult, but, rather, they are the limitations of English, which occaisonally make Latin difficult to be rendered facile.

[bingley]

We can say things in English we can't easily say in Latin, so English is limited? <br /><br />Could you explain how you reach this conclusion? Surely the limitation (if there is one) would be on Latin's side.

[Keesa]

I don't quite follow that train of thought, either...<br />

[benissimus]

It's easy to develop a "Latin superiority complex." Best just to nod and agree and accept Latin's superiority.

[vinobrien]

How about<br /><br />I'm about to go<br />in eo sum ut eam

[Milito]

[quote author=bingley link=board=3;threadid=408;start=0#3428 date=1060569757]<br />We can say things in English we can't easily say in Latin, so English is limited? <br /><br />Could you explain how you reach this conclusion? Surely the limitation (if there is one) would be on Latin's side. <br />[/quote]<br /><br />If you think about it - and here we're getting more into "Academy" subject matter.... every language has limitations in some way or another. Word order is everything in English, which results in some limitations. (Ambiguous statements, if one isn't really careful about how one orders one's words, for instance.) Words have extremely flexible meanings in English, too, to the point that colloquial meanings take over original meanings in a very few years, and then you have to find another word for the original..... English has no simple future tense - you have to work something out with other verbs to make one. My guess is that the original English speakers just weren't much interested in the future, so didn't see a need for one.<br /><br />Latin's limited, too, in different ways. The rigid grammar can in some ways be as much of a difficulty as the word order, and some of the inflection rules make for monsterous mouthfuls of words to get one's teeth around. <br /><br />I've always wondered if you can't tell a whole lot about the basic culture/beliefs/environment of the originators of a language by the grammar and words they use - some languages have multiple words for a concept that only rates one in other languages. (I'm thinking particularly of "snow" at the moment.... I am given to understand that at least one Inuit dialect has over 30 words for "snow", whereas English only has one, and adds adjectives to get more descriptive.)<br /><br />Kilmeny

[Keesa]

[quote author=Milito link=board=3;threadid=408;start=0#3512 date=1060609623]<br /><br />and here we're getting more into "Academy" subject matter.... [/quote]<br /><br />Which is why I've followed this post up in the Academy. See you there! <br /><br />Keesa

[Lumen_et_umbra]

I have always thought Latin grammar's rigidity and preciseness to be a praemium. The unsaid reason on which I predicated English's limitations is that English relies so much on inflections and colloquialisms to express an idea, whereas most other languages do not; and since the majority rules, English is commensurately disadvantaged.<br /><br />In English, a given phrase can have many different meanings depending on the vocal inflection. That kind of promiscuity of interpretation and of meaning, in my mind, is an impedimentum.<br /><br />Remember what Hamlet said: "Nothing is such, save a man think it so to make it thus." (an approximate quotation)<br /><br />Videlicet, if I believe Latin to be superior to English in some wise, then such a statement asserting it to be thus, is well justifiable in my mind.