Disputatio:Ayn Rand

Ayn Rand fuit pagina mensis Iulii 2009.

Nomen "Ayn"; etc.

Ah, Ayn comes from Алиса? Then she probably shoudl be Alicia Rand. Also romanciatora and importantissima are not words. For the latter, use "maximi momenti" "of greatest importance" (though, ahem, that is somewhat POV), and for the former perhaps "mythistoriarum scriptrix." I should probably be writing this in Spanish, eh? Oh well. --Iustinus 03:50, 6 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Not to mention a new sense for fictio ('a lie, a feigning, a deception') and new verbs like describuit and the phrase ad orbum mundi vivendum (maybe something about the world's orphan, from orbus, -i?) ! Maxcorrigenda all the way !

I was aiming for "a philosophy for living on earth", a phrase of Rand. I'll research how to translate this. Thanks for your help.Rafaelgarcia 12:46, 6 Februarii 2007 (UTC)(same as 68.118.245.199)

Hmm, philosophia vivendi is good, but then how to translate "on earth"? Presumably, from what I know about Rand, she meant here "The Real World," as opposed to some made up polyanna fantasy, and while I can think of many Latin words for "the world" (e.g. mundus, orbis (terrarum), terrae, saeculum), I'm not sure which one fits the intended meaning. I did use saeculum to mean "the real world" when I nominated Dr. Dalby for magistracy, but I didn't really mean it in the same sence Rand would have. --Iustinus 17:40, 6 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Ah, now that I know what our friend intended, I'd suggest philosophia in veritate vivendi, or philosophia in vero vivendi, the philosophy of living in reality. (Veritas and verum = 'reality'.) Of course you could use realitas, but I think it's postclassical. There's no point in mentioning the earth, not least because Rand should have been quick to recognize that humanity will eventually go beyond the earth to seed its intelligence throughout the universe (unless a nonhuman world beats us to it). IacobusAmor 18:11, 6 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Mythistoria

By the way, this mythistoria seems like an odd compound in view of 18th-century attestions of 'novel' as historia ficta and narratio ficta. And then there's the still-extant weirdness of the res "Stelliter" ! IacobusAmor 04:31, 6 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Mythistoria is a classical word, though a rare one. The circumlocutions would certainly work though. --Iustinus 04:40, 6 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

1. The definition in L&S (boldface added) = "a fabulous narrative (post-class.), Capitol. Macr. 1." So are you sure there's a classical attestation? IacobusAmor 12:40, 6 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

>sigh< Well I think I'm casting my nets wider here than the L&S: really what I mean is an ancient attestation, whereas they mean from a specific era of the ancient world. I will confess, though, that the association of mythistoria with what we now call "the novel" (in its meanings both as applied to the modern world and to the ancient world) does appear to be a modern, and perhaps specifically Conventicular one. --Iustinus 17:40, 6 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

2. Mythistoria is obviously a Greekish compound, as Latin doesn't look favorably on compounds of that structure. In translations from Latin into English, there's a convention (one sees it occasionally in Shackleton Bailey's Loeb) of rendering Greek words in French. Working backward from that practice, it might accordingly be clever to reserve mythistoria for times when, in a non-French original, the word for 'novel' is already marked as being peculiar, and perhaps even French, like roman à clef. (Other marked terms for 'novel' are yarn and penny dreadful ; you get the idea.) This is a point about style, or what linguists call register — something that many of our tiro contributors don't have a clue about, something that's not easy for any nonnative speaker. IacobusAmor 12:40, 6 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Latin has no problem with Greekish compounds, so long as they aren't formed from Latin elements, so I don't see the relevance here. --Iustinus 17:40, 6 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

My suspicion (if one may be allowed to channel Cicero here) is that in "ordinary" Classical contexts the word might appear "marked," peculiar, unusual—set, as it were, in flashing red 64-point bold italic small caps, like when you say "I shall now partake of a plenitudinous prandial repast" instead of "I'm going to have a big lunch now." It's a matter of tone, or register. I used to call such terms fish-out-of-water words: except when they're in their element, they flop about, helplessly, gasping. I can imagine Cicero & Atticus using a term like it, as they and their kind often bandied Greek words to each other, but not in all contexts. It's probably not the term that the average homo-in-via would have used to denote a novel. But of course that could be wrong—and for all I know, peasants toiling at their plows may often have debated with themselves the merits of this or that mythistoria. Hence, as we all agree, the importance of attestations. IacobusAmor 18:01, 6 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

You are not wrong here, but keep in mind that in an encyclopedia sometimes obscure technical terminology is needed. I've mentioned before that I use more medievalisms and such when naming wikipedia articles than I would normally, just to help with disambiguation: Classical, day to day Latin often used very broad terms, where English prefers more specific ones. If we are going to stick to such terms we need to use long circumlocutions which can interrupt the flow of an article as badly as a recondite sesquipedalianism ;) --Iustinus 01:45, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

3. Some sources say the first surviving Western novel is Apuleius's Metamorphoses, often called Asinus Aureus. What did second-century Latin-speakers call its genre? Mythistoria ? or what ? Maybe just metamorphoses = 'picaresque novel' ? IacobusAmor 12:40, 6 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

I thought metamorphoses are "changes"? --Alex1011 15:01, 6 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but what did people call the work? Did they say it was Apuleius's changes? or his mythistoria? or his fabula? or what? IacobusAmor 15:20, 6 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Alex, I think you missed Iacobus' point. He's saying that The Metamorphoses by Apuleius is often said to be the first novel, so it woudl be useful to know what term the ancients used to refer to it. I can't say. But I suspect that they used something insuficiently specific, like fabula or historia. In any case, I do not recomment commenticia which we currently have, because I think that would/will be read as "false" (i.e. containing lies and/or bad philosophy) rather tahn "fictional." --Iustinus 17:40, 6 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

What order of meanings do the dictionaries propose? The lie-connotation is with both words, but my impression was, that with commenticium this meaning is further behind other more positive meanings than with fictivum, where the lie appears already second place. So I thought it is just the other way round, commenticium is less "false" than fictivum. By the way "fabula commenticia ..." is an attested translation for science fiction. --Alex1011 15:01, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Oy, "science fiction", don't get me started. But Perseus is down, so I (like all computer-addicted classicists) am paralyzed. I own a hard copy of L&S, but I'm just to lazy to use it. Also, I have places to be, so this will have to wait ;) --Iustinus 15:33, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

So far as I know, no other classical author mentions Apuleius's Metamorphoses at all -- so, if I'm right, no help there. Apuleius himself refers to his stories as fabulae (plural) and says he is going to narrate them sermone Milesio. In discussion which is now at Disputatio categoriae:Scriptores mythistoriarum, I accepted Iustinus's point that fabulae can refer to too many genres (e.g. drama). Sermo Milesius is (I think) much too culturally specific for us to use it as a term for "novel".

The reference for this word in L&S is from the Life of Macrinus in the Historia Augusta. It's a curious word, yes, but in its context there it really does seem to mean that the writer who is being criticised, Iunius Cordus, made his biographies too "novelistic", very much in our sense. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 14:57, 8 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Besides of fabula Milesia also Fabula Romanensis is attested. --Alex1011 15:28, 8 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Fons nominis Ayn

The name is explained in English wikip. --Alex1011 08:04, 6 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Then I sit corrected. --Iustinus 17:40, 6 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

"(Give me) liberty, or (give me) death!"

I see that overnight, 68.118.245.199 has changed my emendation ("Libertatem aut mortem!") back to his/her original ("Libertate aut morte!"): is that the best way of saying it? I thought the accusative would be more natural here for two reasons: (1) exclamations are usually in the accusative (Allen & Greenough #397d); and (2) the phrase seems to be a short form of Patrick Henry's famous sentence, "Da mihi libertatem, aut da mihi mortem!" For my edification, 68.118.245.199, could you explain why the ablative is best here? IacobusAmor 12:04, 6 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Good point. I'll change it back...At the time, I didn't realize I was unchanging a change made by someone else! Sorry I new to wikis as well as to latin!Rafaelgarcia 12:46, 6 Februarii 2007 (UTC)(same as 68.118.245.199)

Atlas Shrugged

Iacobus, I am no student of Ayn Rand, but my understanding is that the metaphor is "What happens if one on whose shoulders the earth rests, looses his certainty and/or does not live up to his responsibility"... so shrug could in theory be either of the meanings you were thinking of, but it does need to involve motion of the shoulders, or else the world would fall off. Atlas Sublatus would really mean "Atlas removed," which actually just might work, but is not the metaphor here. --Iustinus 01:58, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Bene dicis, Iustine. The sense of the phrase isn't obvious even in English. Maybe someone who has read the book will tell us what point it's making. We know Atlas carries the earth on his shoulders, and we know you can shrug a shoulder: but how do you shrug an Atlas? That's the sense that the phrase has to convey: "Atlas has been shrugged"—unless (and unusually for the titles of books) it's a complete sentence and really means "Atlas did shrug." ¶ As to the word order, however: it's sort of backward in English (he's a shrugged Atlas), so maybe it should be backward in Latin, that is, put in the less usual order, with the adjective/participle preceding the noun it modifies. IacobusAmor 02:16, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Why does "shrugged" have to be a participle? "Cicero spoke", "Edison invented", "IacobusAmor wrote"... and "Atlas shrugged." There's no need for a "did" to make that a grammatical sentence. It is strange as a book title, mind you, but not unparalleled. --Iustinus 03:14, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

It is definitely both, which is the interesting part: shrugged both means shirked as it is Atlas' duty to hold up the vault of the sky, and also of course the actual shoulder movement necessary to drop the vault of the sky from your back. I wonder if demittere might do the trick?--Ioshus ^(disp) 03:22, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Re: "Why does "shrugged" have to be a participle?"—it doesn't have to be, but that's the default, at least in the mind of any literate English-speaker. The canonical model is perhaps Paradise Lost, followed of course by Paradise Regained. And then for a more widely read audience there's Gerusalemme Liberata. IacobusAmor 03:53, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Well, paradise can't lose itself... here Atlas is a personal noun; I don't necessarily see participle as default. (I may be biased, I read the story at least 10-15 years ago...) --Ioshus ^(disp) 03:56, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Silly Ioshus, "Paradise and Inferno played a game of hockey. The score was 7-9. Paradise lost." There you go. ;) Seriously, Iacobus, it is true that there are a lot of NOUN PARTICIPLE titles in English, and not so many NOUN PAST-TENSE (probably has to do with the fact that the overwhelming majority of titles in Greek and Latin are noun phrases--or more often, prepostional ones involving noun phrases. Still, there's no rule against verb-phrase titles in English, and I think the author's intent does count for something --Iustinus 04:14, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the larger point is that the titles of just about all (all, all, all) books, poems, plays, movies, paintings, and other artworks are noun phrases, not complete sentences (as Atlas Shrugged would be if it meant "Atlas did shrug"). Fortunately, nobody has to translate the title, as the original isn't in Latin—and when a Latin edition comes out, the job will have been done for us! IacobusAmor 04:43, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

A River Runs Through It, Who Moved My Cheese, Consider the Lobster, The Empire Strikes Back, Stuart Saves His Family, I Married a Monster From Outer Space, The Gods Must Be Crazy :P --Iustinus 06:06, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

That's why I said "just about all": exceptions exist, but they're not the default. IacobusAmor 13:38, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but there seemed to be an eccho when you said it :P --Iustinus 15:32, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure of the best latin translation for Atlas Shrugged. However, Rand's idea is that the hero Altas, who has held up the world, might go ``on strike" and refuse to continue to hold up the world.

The German title of the book was "Atlas throws off the world." in the sense of going on strike. --Alex1011 09:49, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

If the sense is that he might go on strike, or that he does go on strike, the only appropriate title would have been Atlas Shrugs. So once again it seems that the best sense of the real title is "Atlas [the] rejected" or "Atlas having been rejected," or whatever. If it means something else, it's too clever by half. IacobusAmor 13:38, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't it mean "Atlas has thrown off the world", Atlas shrugged, and now the world is lying down in a shambles? That would fit the story. In a way in the story Atlas (the entrepreneurs) are rejected, but what Rand wants to say is, that the entrepreneurs have enough of it, of state interventions and so on, and they "go on strike". In addition, Atlas is not rejected, because the state comes back for the entrepreneurs to help it, but it is the entrepreneurs who now reject the approaches of state, unions and other "parasites". --Alex1011 14:32, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Re: "Couldn't it mean "Atlas has thrown off the world"—Yes, it could, and it would then be Atlas Has Shrugged. (But it's not.) You've implied to us that the German title is in the present tense, and so it would then be Atlas Shrugs. (But it's not.) In English, headlines (and the titles of artworks when they have verbs in them; see Iustinus's list above) tend to be in the present tense. ¶ Anyway, the title at the moment is Atlas umeris micavit 'Atlas rapidly moved his shoulders up & down', and that doesn't catch any of the "interesting" qualities of the (English) title. IacobusAmor 15:02, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

I still think "Atlas the rejected" doesn't fit the content of the story. We somehow must translate into Latin "Atlas lifted (the shoulder) slightly (to show indifference)." (Oxford dictionary for "to shrug".) --Alex1011 15:20, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

I repeat my suggestion of demittere.--Ioshus ^(disp) 15:38, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Demittere is very good in terms of conveying both "drop" and "blow off one's responsibility", but it doesn't get the Atlas/Shoulders allusion. I suppose we could fix that with Atlas humeris/humeros demisit. Boh. --Iustinus 17:33, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Nunc postremo habeo secundum Smith/Hall:
1) "Atlas humeros suspicantis gestu movit quemadmodum ii facere solent quibus mali subolet."
2) "Atlas humeros allevavit atque contraxit." --Alex1011 17:42, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

I wish upon wish we had a perfect active participle to work with. I'd go with simpler Iustine: Atlas mundum(or orbem terrarum if you'd prefer) demisit.--Ioshus ^(disp) 17:46, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

A participle would allow us to use de, but you know, it doesn't seem to violate the spirit of the title if we say De Atlante Mundum Demittente (or whatever translation we decide on) --Iustinus 18:07, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Good point.--Ioshus ^(disp) 18:10, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

If you mean to pun on 'to let down', then how about Atlas Mundum Demittit 'Atlas Lets the World Down'? IacobusAmor 18:22, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Letting the world down, does not quite capture the idea. In the novel, Atlas shrugs off his role of supporting the world, because the world punishes him and attempts to make him feel guilty for being good and doing what he does, instead of appreciating, respecting and admiring his effort. In the novel, the shrugging is suggested as a passive act of withdrawing from the world, a recognition that he owes nothing to the world. Atlas represents the men of the mind, and the shrug the men of the mind going on strike and withdrawing from their roles as producers and intellectuals in society.Rafaelgarcia 19:04, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

In Langenscheidt I found: nihil certe respondere (for "to shrug"). demitto: to send downwards, to let down, but not metaphorically, but literally, to send marching downwards. That is, what I found in Stowasser. I think we need something like: Atlas mundum effundivit vel excutivit. - something like a horse throwing off the rider. --Alex1011 08:41, 8 Februarii 2007 (UTC) --Alex1011 23:16, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Ohhh, come now. Most certainly demittere has dual meaning. <runs off to fetch OLD...> --Ioshus ^(disp) 00:15, 8 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it has several meanings, including "drop" and... well, "forgive," but that doesn't help here ;) --Iustinus 00:27, 8 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

animum demittere I found, doesn't help here either. --Alex1011 08:36, 8 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Ex vicipaedia Francogallica: La Révolte d'Atlas, ou Atlas Shrugged (littéralement : "Atlas haussa les épaules") --Alex1011 22:35, 8 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Maybe not oratio obliqua after all?

Hmm. This may still not be right. Iustine, what say?

Original: Egoismus rationalis decretum est ut homo se amandum est.

Changed to: Egoismus est rationale decretum hominem se amandum esse.

Maybe better after all: Egoismus est decretum rationale ut homo se amandum sit.

This doesn't sound right, but what is? ut homo se amet ? What's it trying to say? IacobusAmor 02:32, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

The principle in Objectivism is called "Rational Egoism" to distinguish the Objectivist concept from hedonistic egoism which Rand did not believe in one bit. I was aiming at "Rational Egoism is the principle that man should love himself." But admittedly even more accurate to Objectivism would be "Rational Egoism is the principle that each man should live for his own values. "Egoismus Rationalis est decretum ut omnis homo pro amore sibi vivendi sit." ?? Rafaelgarcia 17:34, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Hedonistice persequenda felicitate

I disagree with the change made by 69.239.63.96 from "Philosophia sua, Obiectivismus, describit philosophiam in vero vivendi."to "Nota est ad creationem philosophiae nominatae Obiectismus, quae curat ipsam de hedonistice persequenda felicitate." It may be better latin but the statement misrepesents Rand's thought. She condemns hedonism. Rational Egoism is not the same thing. I tried to fix by replacing the last phrase with "quae curat ipsam de ratione persequenda beatitateque" which I take to mean: "which conerns itself with the pursuit of reason and happiness". Am I translating that right?Rafaelgarcia 17:33, 7 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Non posses crustulum edere et postea habere.

Curiositatis meae causa: Fuitne id verbum iam Latinum proverbium? --Alex1011 07:51, 22 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Latino directe ab Anglice. Mihi placet si scies verum proverbium Latinum.68.118.245.199 00:30, 23 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Why is this proverb being credited to Rand? It's as old as the hills! According to Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, John Heywood's Proverbs (1546) in part 2, chapter 7, has this example: "Would ye both eat your cake and have your cake?" And George Herbert's poem The Size (1633) says "Wouldst thou both eat thy cake and have it?" IacobusAmor 12:46, 23 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

I think, it is in the text not credited to Rand, the text somewhat imprecisely implies that she used it. --Alex1011 13:04, 23 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Tens of millions of others have used it : should we credit them too?! IacobusAmor 13:08, 23 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Well, this proverb has become quite common, I think, in business circles, that's why it might have appeared here. There is, by the way, a Helvetian variant: to have the Weckli and the Kreuzerli, the paniculum and the coin to pay for it. --Alex1011 13:24, 23 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

She did not invent the saying just as she did not either "Libertatem aut mortem" or "Ut natura imperatur, necesse est naturae oboedire.". She used these popular phrases to sum up/explain her philosophical take on reason in a way that anyone could appreciate. See http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_intro Rafaelgarcia 13:26, 23 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Not sure crustulum is the best word though, especially since nowadays it is usually translated as "cookie." Granted, the Romans didn't really have cookies in our sense of the word, or at least the difference between cookies and cakes wasn't quite as pronounced as it is now, but when we write about cookies, surely we will use crustulum anyway. Perhaps libum might be better? --Iustinus 17:20, 23 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Offa means cake in the sense of "lumped together", right?--Ioshus ^(disp) 17:34, 23 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Offa means generally "morsel" and specifically "small piece of meat marinated in a special sauce," the latter especially when in the diminutive. That's somewhere on my list of articles to write (see Usor:Iustinus/offella for loci antiqui that I've already gathered). So... inasmuch is it is a delicious food item, offa could fit here, but inasmuch as it is not a cake, it's not a good literal translation of the English expression. --Iustinus 18:13, 23 Februarii 2007 (UTC)

Latest edit and summarium by User:68.118.245.199

If finis is neuter I'm a Dutchman. And the intended word was no doubt beatitudinem. But I'll leave the corrections to the Ayn Rand enthusiasts. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:32, 23 Februarii 2007 (UTC)