Saturday 18 August 2007

Latin Grammar And Document Integrity

Heheheheh... a while back, I was chatting about blogging matters, and I happened to mention Philip Andrews' blog, Carpe Canum. It was mentioned that it should read Carpe Canem (something to do with a minor point of grammar, innit?) As I know even less about Latin than Philip, I decided that it was none of my business, and I would keep very, very quiet.

I was amused today to notice that the title bar has been changed, and the blog title is now "Carpe Canem." There have also been a couple of jokes in various com-boxes about accusatives, datives, declensions (or whatever... I said I knew nothing about grammar) so I deduce that someone on the blogosphere finally decided to point out the error...

I find this especially amusing because ICEL claim that they don't want the translations of texts for things such as the new Missal to appear on the internet because they are concerned for the accuracy of translation and preserving the integrity of the texts...

...I'd have said that the one place you can't have typos (there are loads in the Breviary) or inaccurate or misleading translations for any length of time would be the internet... there are always hoardes of people who will be only too happy to comment!

6 comments:

Mulier Fortis said...

Ha! Gotcha Newhouse!! I know it's "hordes" and not "hoardes" but I wanted to see if you'd point it out!

If you're not Newhouse, then ignore the above...

Anonymous said...

Well, unluckily for Philip, 'Carpe canum' is not really lacking meaning: it means 'Seize the old man'. :-)
Don't worry, Philip, it could have meant something far worse.

Anonymous said...

Speaking of Breviaries, I do wish Baronius would hurry up and bring out the new 'old' English-Latin one.

Anonymous said...

Err.... "hoards" not "hoardes"

Phil said...

Seize the old man, wow, that would raise eyebrows! :-)

Any reader of my blog will be familiar with my typos, usually caused by poor typing skills, but occasionally, my poor education, or lack of it altogether, exhibits itself in some embarrassing form or other.

I had hoped that things might blow over, but, eagle-eyed as ever Mac, you are correct about the commentary that resulted – well, just one comment, to my knowledge. You’ll find the original here: http://cathcon.blogspot.com/2007/08/some-pictures-of-now-closed-basilica-of.html#comment-1370911492635947534 . Cathcon had linked to my post about Corpus Christi, Miles Platting and a gentleman, with a profile that reveals only the name “Anthony”, wrote the following comment: “Carpe canUm? Canum is the genitive plural of 'canis' (dog). Does he want the accusative ingular, 'canem'? If not, whatever can he mean? Manifest ignorance of this kind gives the rest of us traditionalists a bad name.” I thought this was a bit harsh, especially as I think he means to say singular, instead of “ingular”, unless Latin declension is even more complicated than I thought. I notice that he reveals nothing of himself, nor does he have a blog. While I know my blog will not win awards, I hope some folks find it interesting – the comments suggest that. As for giving traditionalists a bad name, I fear his attitude is enough to put off many priests who may be interested in learning to say the Extraordinary Form. Make one error in pronunciation and be faced with Anthony steaming towards you with all the vitriol of Attila the Hun. Safer to stay with Novus Ordo, don’t you think? So, I apologise to all you traditionalists, whose name I sully.

In spite of the RSCM’s motto, Psallam spiritu et mente, my years in the choir tended to dwell more on the “spiritu”, rather than the “mente”.

BTW, I’m stuck with the URL, so I can still organise the chaos of the situation. :-)

Phil said...

Now updated - basically the same, but with *minor* changes, hehe! Hope you approve!

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