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Sun 22 Jul, 2007 10:00 am
Can anyone translate the following english phrase into latin:
"Those who think they know everything annoy those of us who do"
any help will be appreciated
I encountered a rather intractable difficulty in translating this.
To elaborate, one can expand the above phrase like this: "Those who think they know everything annoy those of us who do know everything." The last two words do not need to be said, because an English speaker understands that they are implied by the word do (a phenomenon called ellipsis).
Latin lacks an auxiliary verb that functions the same way as to do does in English. The following examples might help you understand what I mean (assuming you don't already). The abbreviation sc. means "supply," or "the following words are understood."
In English, when someone asks,
"Who wants to eat?"
Someone else might answer,
"I do" (sc. want to eat).
In Latin, the same question goes,
Quis edere vult?
but the affirmative answer would be
Volo ("I want") or Equidem ("I indeed" or "I for my part") or perhaps simply Ego ("I").
This difference between the two languages in no way prevents us from saying essentially the same thing in Latin, but it really loses its zing. One could say,
vexant illi qui se omnia scire putant nos qui vere omnia sciunt.
This means, "those people who fancy that they know everything annoy us who truly know everything." It's certainly a viable translation, but it's not NEARLY as pithy in the Latin, primarily because it requires the repetition of omnia scire (know everything).
I'll keep thinking about it, and will certainly post again if I think of a way to make it sound clever in Latin.
Sorry that this is probably more discouraging than helpful =P
those who know everything....
thank you, thank you, thank you! I knew there was someone in the world who could translate this into latin! It is not nearly as "unpithy" as you imply...in fact, I think it is rather close to the root.
Once again, thanks for taking the time to do this.
It will now appear prominently on my business card (and let the world figure out what it means)!
No problem. Believe it or not, this kind of stuff is actually FUN for me.
Quote:vexant illi qui se omnia scire putant nos qui vere omnia sciunt
So, i was walking around campus today, and it suddenly hit me that i had screwed this up.
sciunt should be
scimus.
Of course, I dunno whether you'll ever come back to this website, and you probably already printed your cards...so...
Sorry!