Loan proverbs

[Wilson Gray]

Oh, well. De gustibus non est disputandum, to coin a phrase.

-Wilson

On 2/7/07, Charles Doyle <cdoyle at uga.edu> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Charles Doyle <cdoyle at UGA.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: Loan proverbs
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> The problem is not the discovery of phrases or even sentences in Latin and other languages, but the determination of whether they can properly be called PROVERBIAL in English-speaking contexts.
>
> A proverb would be used, orally (let's say), in a definable "folk group" the members of which would understand the saying as traditional and might on occasion themselves say it--not as a quotation, though, or a learned allusion (such expressions would be called aphorisms or sententiae). It's hard to be very precise here. A group of scholars could certainly constitute a folk group; still, not every Latin sentence they might utter would be proverbial.
>
> I'd say "Carpe diem" is a good candidate--especially since the movie _Dead Poets Society_ taught the saying to a wider public.
>
> (Then we have that bothersome and ill-defined category "catch phrase"!)
>
> --Charlie
> ____________________________________________________
>
> ---- Original message ----
> >Date: Wed, 7 Feb 2007 16:25:41 -0500
> >From: "Baker, John" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM>
> >Subject: Re: Loan proverbs
> >
> >        Wikipedia has a page,
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Latin_phrases, that is devoted to
> >Latin phrases.  Not all of these are proverbs, but it does include
> >"Carpe diem," "Et tu, Brute?" and the like, which would seem to be what
> >you are looking for.  A longer list is at
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Latin_phrases.  I don't know if
> >they have anything like this for other languages; there is nothing at
> >http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:French_phrases, for example.
> >
> >
> >John Baker
> >
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
>
> >Subject: Loan proverbs
> >
> >Our recent ruminations about "Inter faeces et urinam nascimur" got me thinking about the (not-very-large?) category that I'll call LOAN PROVERBS--proverbs uttered in a foreign language within English discourse--as distinct from "calqued" proverbs or proverbs that simply have analogs in other tongues or pseudo-foreign constructions like "Nil illigitimi carborundum." And "true" proverbs--propositions consisting of entire sentences--not just phrases or idioms.
> >
> >Last night on TV Dr. House said "Veni, vidi, vici." Then there are "C'est la vie" and "Che sara sara." "Cogito ergo sum"?
> >
> >What others?
> >
> >--Charlie
>
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--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Sam'l Clemens

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