In Orberg’s LLPSI Ch. XVIII he has: ‘Quisque puer stilum et regulam promit et ducit lineam recta in tabula sua; tum scribere incipit.’
I wasn’t aware that ducit can mean ‘He / she draws’. Is this the same word as duco, ducere (to lead etc.)?
Probè adnotas. Nonnè est quod facis et anglicé: lineam trans superficiem ducis?
Yes, spot on. You do that in English too, no? You draw/lead a line across a surface.
Adrianus, thanks. In English you wouldn’t say ‘He leads a line across paper’ - at least not that I’ve seen.. thanks.
In English I just did; however, I wasn’t speaking normally but suggestively. I mean you can see the commonality of sense in English between drawing and leading.
Id benè anglicè dixi at modo speciali et adjicienti. Ità dicere volo: anglicè “to draw” et “to lead” sensum communem communicant.
I think adrianus is trying to point out that we do the same thing in English with “draw a line” versus “draw from a well”, “draw a cart”, etc.
In English I’ve also seen “pull a line”, though I think I’ve usually seen that said by inkers (people who replace pencil lines with ink lines as part of the process of making comics – people who are massively underappreciated, I might add).
I think “to draw out” can be a translation of ducere, in some senses, with the same meaning as ‘to lead across’ , to it isn’t such a big leap to understand the Latin idiom, as Adrianus points out, it is very similar in concept to the English idiom.
A horse draws a carriage. Eqvus pilentum ducit.
A line is drawn. linea ducitur.
carrus ducitur A carriage is drawn.
She drew a line with a pencil. Ducit illa lineam stylo.
He was drawn along by two soldiers. per duos milites ducitur
Of course I do see the connection and similarity - I was just observing what is idiomatic in English. Certainly a CEO might lead a team of managers or, as observed, a horse might draw a carriage.
Hi pmda - i think you are getting on the right track with this.
I think the key is to treat latin as a stand alone language, without reference to english (or whatever may be your native tongue). Words in any language are attributed to an image or concept in our minds, and this what you must refer to when translating.
In the case of ‘duco’, it is an image of something being in charge or control of something else, often combined with physical movement. ‘To lead’ can be a good english translation of this concept or image, but not necessarily so, because it has it’s own image/concept connected in our minds which differs slightly.
It is important not to think of the english translation of the latin word, in order to then attribute the image/concept of the english word to the latin word. Although this may work initially, you will lose a lot of nuance and end up with seemingly non-sensical translations (e.g. i don’t think i have ever said that someone ‘leads’ a pencil over a piece of paper, when I mean that he is drawing).
hope this makes sense…