Chapter 2 Sentence Help

[ThatGuyWhoLovesLatin]

In chapter 2, wouldn't "Without philosophy we often go astray and pay the penalty" be "Sine philosophia saepe erramus et (not sure which verb is to pay couldn't find it in the vocab) poenam?" I'm seeing it as "Sine philosophia saepe erramus et poenas damus" which I think isn't correct because first it's not "penalties" it's "penalty" so shouldn't it be in the accusative singular? Also don't recall -us being a verb ending. If that's not supposed to be a verb, that "correct" sentence is missing a verb.

EDIT: The word order is God awful, I know.

[seneca2008]

If you look at the dictionary entry for poena you will see that it is used very often in the plural even if in English one might use the singular. I think one can see how the ambiguity arises. The penalty will be exile and loss of property. Is this one penalty or two? The penalties will be exile and loss of property would seem possible but perhaps a bit unusual. The difference between one and two or more penalties seems not well formed. Is hanging drawing and quartering one penalty or three? In Latin I think whether you use pl or singular is a matter of idiom and you shouldn't strive to find a one to one correspondence between Latin and English usage.

If you dont recognise Damus you need urgently to review the conjugation of "Do" give. Also if you dont recognise -us as a verb ending its not surprising as the ending is -mus cf "erramus"

[ThatGuyWhoLovesLatin]

If you look at the dictionary entry for poena you will see that it is used very often in the plural even if in English one might use the singular. I think one can see how the ambiguity arises. The penalty will be exile and loss of property. Is this one penalty or two? The penalties will be exile and loss of property would seem possible but perhaps a bit unusual. The difference between one and two or more penalties seems not well formed. Is hanging drawing and quartering one penalty or three? In Latin I think whether you use pl or singular is a matter of idiom and you shouldn't strive to find a one to one correspondence between Latin and English usage.

If you dont recognise Damus you need urgently to review the conjugation of "Do" give. Also if you dont recognise -us as a verb ending its not surprising as the ending is -mus cf "erramus"

Thank you for clearing that up Seneca! It's quite embarrassing that I didn't recognize damus as do,dare but I'm sure we all make those little stupid mistakes when we start (or, at least I hope so.)

[seneca2008]

It's quite embarrassing that I didn't recognize damus

Making mistakes is a necessary part of learning. I make many.