[C18-L] Help with Latin translations

[Joel S. Berson]

At 8/17/2009 11:04 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>Definitely good enough for government work.

Gee thanks -- but I aim for a higher authority.  :-)

>Back in that day, _concubitus_ may have been thought of as "lying
>together" and not as "copulation," but that's just a WAG on my part.

Or at least generally written as "lying
together"  -- but in the 21st century I can be
less euphemistic.  (And of course the reason I'm
dealing with Latin is that the ministers used it
to avoid saying unclean things in
English.  Somewhat like the French of Dorothy
Sayers in one of the Lord Peter mysteries.)

>_Usque ad_ = "(all the way) up to," "even unto," like that.

Ditto.  "Resulting in" or "leading to" rather than some 17th-century phrasing.

Thanks,
Joel


>-Wilson
>
>On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 9:44 AM, Joel S. Berson<Berson at att.net> wrote:
> > ---------------------- Information from the
> mail header -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>
> > Subject:      [C18-L] Help with Latin translations
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > I would appreciate comments on whether my translations of the
> > following Latin phrases are sufficiently accurate.  Warning (or
> > teaser) -- X-rated content follows.
> >
> > "penetratio corporis" = penetration of the body.
> >
> > "fricatio usque ad effusionem seminis" = friction resulting in
> > emission of semen.
> >
> > "per modum concubitus" = in the manner of copulation.
> >
> > For the compulsive, these come from letters written in 1642 by
> > "reverend elders" of the Plymouth Colony to Gov. Bellingham of
> > Massachusetts, in response to his question about under what
> > circumstances acts of sodomy were capital offenses.  From William
> > Bradford, _Of Plymouth Plantation_, ed. Samuel Eliot Morison (Knopf,
> > 1952), pages 404 and 407.
> >
> > Thanks!
> > Joel
> >
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>--
>-Wilson
>­­­
>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.
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