Maureen Dowd in Latin today

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MarcusE
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Maureen Dowd in Latin today

Post by MarcusE »

Check out Maureen Dowd's column in Latin today at the NY Times website.

It's a hoot!

TamerOfHorses
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Post by TamerOfHorses »

Just checked it out. Really funny!

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thesaurus
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Lucus Eques
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Post by Lucus Eques »

What is god's name are "lunibus" ?? Is that from the Spanish lunes??
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thesaurus
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Lucus Eques wrote:What is god's name are "lunibus" ?? Is that from the Spanish lunes??
Pretty sure it's supposed to be moon... luna, as in phrase "many moons ago." The author was evidently playing pretty fast and loose with Latin for comic effect.

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adrianus
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Post by adrianus »

Videte
http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2008/10/12/opinion/12dowd.html?permid=253 wrote:For those whose Latin is a bit rusty, here's a translation, whose fidelity to Dowd's original is not much greater than hers to proper Latin usage. Yes, of course it's better in the original
et
http://mojohotel.blogspot.com/ wrote:I'll try to fill in the rest…without resorting to my Latin dictionary!...Maybe someone out there can clean it up for me.
There are so many silly and humourous mistakes in the piece, I guess you have to suppose them all intentional.
Tot vitia illo in loco stultissima et jocosissima, quod omnia deliberata sunt arbitrandum est.

MarcusE
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Post by MarcusE »

Knowing Dowd's writing as I do, I'm pretty sure all the silliness was intended, including "lunibus", since it sounds like "looney"

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Post by adrianus »

Thanks, MarcusE, for getting the penny to drop, and it's a great pun on "among a few looneys"!

Gratias, MarcusE, qui rem mihi ad amussim expressisti, et quàm bellam allusionem jocularem pro "inter lunaticos paucos"!

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Lucus Eques
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Post by Lucus Eques »

"penny to drop"? That's an idiom I've never heard! Quid sibi velit?
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Post by adrianus »

"The penny has dropped" = "it has clicked" = "things have fallen into place" = "I have caught on" = "je pige" = "nunc rem vividâ imaginatione ad amussim repraesento" = "derepentè intellego" = "rem ante oculos propono"
OED wrote:g. the penny dropped and variants: a situation or statement has at last been understood; a person has reacted belatedly.
Originally used with allusion to the mechanism of a penny-in-the-slot machine.

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Optime.
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