"_sum total_"

[geoffrey nunberg]

Well, in this particular case, it might difficult to make the case persuasively. The prescriptivist would have to allow that (a) the individual elements of "sum total" correspond etymologically and formally to the elements of "summa totalis" and (b) the two expressions have identical phrasal meanings (i.e., there actually is a one-to-one semantic mapping between the contemp. Eng. and 15th c. Latin phrases), and (c) "summa totalis" isn't redundant in Latin. But even so, the prescriptive argument would go, in the case of English, "total" shifted its meaning well after the calque was first introduced so as force a reanalysis of the syntax of the phrase and make it redundant now. So the rule would be, you should avoid English "sum total" on grounds of redundancy, but if you want to replace it with the synonymous phrase "summa totalis," knock yourself out.

As I said, I think this is the correct analysis, but I have a hard time imagining that anybody would find it satsifying-- I mean, even assuming that it was still okay to substitute a Latin phrase for the corresponding English one in formal prose. In point of fact, of course, nobody ever has to, since "summa totalis" never enters the discussion. But I wonder if there are any other examples of this type.

Geoff


> From: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Date: February 15, 2011 1:33:20 PM PST
> Subject: Re: "_sum total_"
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 3:13 PM, geoffrey nunberg
> <nunberg at ischool.berkeley.edu> wrote:
>> I wonder if charging that 'sum total' is redundant would place one in the awkward position of having to explain why 'summa totalis' isn't.
>>
>
> You mean, by what means a prescriptivist could explain why it is that
> there is no one-to-one-and-onto semantic mapping from contemporary
> English back to 16th-C. Latin?
>
> --
> -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.
-Mark Twain

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