Quick Latin Check

[Gabriela]

"rex verbum" = "king of the word"

Yes?

[HopefulHeart]

I believe it should be "rex verbi." Since "of the word" shows possession, "verbum" needs to be in the genitive case, so "verbi."

[Peace]

Latin?

O Cam42, Cam42! Wherefore art thou Cam42?

[Nihil Obstat]

10 minutes ago, Peace said:

Latin?

O Cam42, Cam42! Wherefore art thou Cam42?

You are not allowed to flame people and then summon them whenever you want them to answer questions for you. It is very gauche.  /s

[Peace]

39 minutes ago, Nihil Obstat said:

You are not allowed to flame people and then summon them whenever you want them to answer questions for you. It is very gauche.  /s

Well I guess that I have disqualified myself from the great privilege of having Cam42 share with me the profits of his 15+ years of Latin study. How shall I ever survive?

[Nihil Obstat]

30 minutes ago, Peace said:

Well I guess that I have disqualified myself from the great privilege of having Cam42 share with me the profits of his 15+ years of Latin study. How shall I ever survive?

You can ask for one of his friends to intercede and mediate on your behalf.

[Luigi]

2 hours ago, Peace said:

Latin?

O Cam42, Cam42! Wherefore art thou Cam42?

"Wherefore" means "why" not "where." So your post means" Why are you Cam42?"

Apparently we need a Shakespearean English expert as much as we need a Latinist.

[beatitude]

4 hours ago, HopefulHeart said:

I believe it should be "rex verbi." Since "of the word" shows possession, "verbum" needs to be in the genitive case, so "verbi."

The phrase 'rex verbum' appears in some Latin prayers and in the Vulgate, but I hesitated over the translation for the same reason you did. I've just looked up a sentence in the Latin Bible where the phrase appears (2 Samuel 14:15) and checked it against an English translation.

"Et dixit ancilla tua: Loquar ad regem, si quomodo faciat rex verbum ancillae suae."

"Your handmaid thought, "I will speak to the king; it may be that the king will perform the request of his servant."

In that context, verbum is request, and it has an accusative case ending because the king is to perform it. That makes sense (although it's over ten years since I did any Latin, so I might be missing something). Gabriela, in what context did you see this phrase?

[bardegaulois]

The context of the sentence means everything here. "Verbum" is neuter, which means that the nominative and accusative endings will be the same. My first thought on seeing this was that "rex" would be nominative, "verbum" would be accusative, and the rest of the sentence was omitted, which means that taken alone it would make no sense.

In Beatitude's example above, just taking the last clause, "faciat" is the verb, which can mean a number of things, such as "make" or "do," but here translated as "will perform," it being in the subjunctive as "quomodo" indicates an uncertainty. So the simple subject, predicate, and complement here would be "faciat rex verbum," or "king will perform request." Without the verb, the phrase makes no sense.

[Peace]

7 hours ago, Luigi said:

"Wherefore" means "why" not "where." So your post means" Why are you Cam42?"

Apparently we need a Shakespearean English expert as much as we need a Latinist.

I am rebuked.

[Gabriela]

11 hours ago, beatitude said:

The phrase 'rex verbum' appears in some Latin prayers and in the Vulgate, but I hesitated over the translation for the same reason you did. I've just looked up a sentence in the Latin Bible where the phrase appears (2 Samuel 14:15) and checked it against an English translation.

"Et dixit ancilla tua: Loquar ad regem, si quomodo faciat rex verbum ancillae suae."

"Your handmaid thought, "I will speak to the king; it may be that the king will perform the request of his servant."

In that context, verbum is request, and it has an accusative case ending because the king is to perform it. That makes sense (although it's over ten years since I did any Latin, so I might be missing something). Gabriela, in what context did you see this phrase?

 

10 hours ago, bardegaulois said:

The context of the sentence means everything here. "Verbum" is neuter, which means that the nominative and accusative endings will be the same. My first thought on seeing this was that "rex" would be nominative, "verbum" would be accusative, and the rest of the sentence was omitted, which means that taken alone it would make no sense.

In Beatitude's example above, just taking the last clause, "faciat" is the verb, which can mean a number of things, such as "make" or "do," but here translated as "will perform," it being in the subjunctive as "quomodo" indicates an uncertainty. So the simple subject, predicate, and complement here would be "faciat rex verbum," or "king will perform request." Without the verb, the phrase makes no sense.

I saw it in a text by St. Isidore, and we are thinking of using it to name a preaching website. Obviously I want to get the grammar right! So, what is correct here? "Rex Verbi"? That sounds a lot less pleasant to the ear, IMO.

Anyone have ideas for what you'd name a preaching website? Must be a short Latin phrase, ideally not too hard for people to remember/spell.

[Gabriela]

I see there are several Latin forums out there on the WWW. Can anybody recommend one? I imagine quite a few are full of undergrads who don't know anything. Is there one with a lot of actual Catholic Latinists on it?

[beatitude]

4 hours ago, Gabriela said:

 

I saw it in a text by St. Isidore, and we are thinking of using it to name a preaching website. Obviously I want to get the grammar right! So, what is correct here? "Rex Verbi"? That sounds a lot less pleasant to the ear, IMO.

Anyone have ideas for what you'd name a preaching website? Must be a short Latin phrase, ideally not too hard for people to remember/spell.

Rex verbi is the correct translation of "king of the word", yes. I just searched for it and found it's the name for a new kind of Scrabble game.

I'd go with a short Latin phrase from Scripture, if I were you. The first thing to come to mind when I read your post was Jeremiah 20:9: "If I say, 'I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name', there is in my heart as it were a burning fire, shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in, and I cannot." If I were you I might go for either In my Heart (In Corde Meum) or Quasi Ignis (Like a Fire). The phrase is enough to invoke the whole verse. Word of Life is also a possibility, if you want some alliteration. I think that would be Verbum Vivendi, but check with someone who's less rusty.  

[Gabriela]

We have a dog to take into consideration... I know this sounds silly, but "Rex" gave us a name for the dog, which pulled the name and the logo graphic together. We'd really like to keep that overall text/graphic coherence, cuz the dog is going to figure prominently as a leitmotif throughout the website. (It's the Dominican dog, in case that wasn't obvious already. )

So, let me amend that last bit: Anyone have ideas for what you'd name a preaching website, in Latin, that could somehow cleverly connect to a dog?

We're trying to avoid fire and light and all that stuff that's been tied to preaching a bajillion times already. Plus we don't want to be seen as too similar to Bishop Barron.

[Nihil Obstat]

Would Rex Iudaeorum be too inflammatory?