Disputatio:Curtius Henricus Sethe

"Simul autem mihi in animo erat studia Aegyptologica persequi"

Quis sum? IacobusAmor 02:32, 19 Martii 2008 (UTC)

Iam ait commentarius: "mense octobri anni 1887 maturitatis testimonio instructus accessit ad Almam Matrem Berolinensem, ut studiis iuridicis auctore patre operam daret. Simul autem mihi in animo erat studia Aegyptologica persequi, quibus inde a classe secunda inferiore principio suo marte." Iterum rogo: quis sum? IacobusAmor

auctumno, autumno

Iustinus ait "the spelling "auctumno" comes from the source, and is standard enough to be the lemmatic spelling in the LSJL&S." The spelling without the c is the lemmatic spelling in Cassell's. At the moment, a search for autumn* turns up one hundred two examples in Vicipaedia, and a search for auctumn* turns up two. IacobusAmor 10:54, 16 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

Iacobe, I have to admit that I still find your devotion to Cassell's a bit eccentric. It's not a bad dictionary, but neither does it have any unique authority. One might rightly argue that the L&S is no authority when it comes to spelling either, but a) the L&S is extremely complete over the era it covers, so it is a major dictionary physically, b) it is very widely used in the English speaking world, particularly since it has been adopted by websites such as Perseus, Pollux, and Numen (which are probably more frequently consulted than physical dictionaries, these days!), so it is a conceptually major dictionary. Therefore even if its authority cannot compete with Cassell's, the point is that if L&S prefers that spelling it is, at the very least, an accepted spelling.

I understand a bit better your desire for consistency, but I do not think it is necessary. Many other Wikipedias have to deal with competing national forms of their language, and they usually solve the problem by saying that if one form or the other is more appropriate to the lemma, that form should be used. I think when we are writing about a 19th—20th century Egyptologist, it is safe to say that the best style of Latin would be what they used in their own autobioography!

In short, if both auctumnus and autumnus are valid forms, and Sethe himself wrote "eiusem anni auctumno Berolinum redii", why not just use the spelling he chose?

--Iustinus 14:44, 17 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

Websites almost certainly use L&S because it's in the public domain, whereas OLD and TLL are under copyright (and in the case of TLL, not yet complete). If somebody'd like to buy copies of them for me, I'd be pleased to have them, but I make do with a dictionary designed especially for me, a dictionary "intended . . . to help [the English-speaking student] in the writing of [Latin], or rather in the writing of Latin prose in the manner of Cicero, Caesar or Livy" (Cassell's, p. vii). ¶ If a text is in quotation marks, then of course "eiusem [sic] anni auctumno Berolinum redii" could be appropriate, or you could say "eiusem [sic] anni auctumno [sic] Berolinum redii." Cassell's generally favors unassimilated forms; that it doesn't in regard to autumn- (and gives the etymology as only "perhaps" from augeo) could indicate a problem with auctumn-. On this point, OLD & TLL might offer better informed & more authoritative judgments. What do they say? IacobusAmor 02:14, 18 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

The OLD gives it as Autumnus but, and this is the important part, it lists auct- right after it. If the OLD and the L&S disagree about which form is better then of course the OLD has more authority. But better is not really the question here: both forms occur, both forms are accepted. This being the case I don't see why we're even arguing about this. Sollennis, sollempnis, let's call the whole thing off.

Yes, I turned the public domain text into a third person account, so it's not a direct quotation, and doesn't need to be exact. But it has always been my habit to match the style of Latin to the subject where I can, and likewise to appropriate texts exactly, if their Latinity is good enough to merit it. Sethe's Latin certainly seems good enough to me.

Even if it were a direct quote, "[sic]" would be an absurd solution here, because it would imply that there is something wrong with auctumnus. There isn't. It is an alternate form, not a solecism.

--Iustinus 03:04, 18 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

All an interpolated sic means is that a word or passage is printing exactly as intended, or that it's exactly reproducing an original, not necessarily that the original was a mistake. For example, an American author might insert a sic after a British author's gaol or tyre, without implying that the British author's spelling had been "wrong." IacobusAmor 13:07, 18 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

If I saw a sic after "gaol" or "tyre", that is exactly what I would assume the provincial American author was implying. --Iustinus 14:15, 18 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

That assumption isn't in the definition as given in Merriam-Webster: "used after a printed word or passage to indicate that it is intended exactly as printed or to indicate that it exactly reproduces an original"—no mention of rightness & wrongness. IacobusAmor 14:23, 18 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but it's a bit like saying "Jacob Love is a 'professor' of 'ethnomusicology' at George Washington 'University.'" Quotes do not ipso facto imply something is dubious, but why else would they be there in the first place? --Iustinus 14:32, 18 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

And if you said "gaol [sic]" on en, I will guarantee you the sic will be removed. --Iustinus 14:15, 18 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

If so, it'd be because :en: is (in part) a British publication, made by British authors & editors, so it'd feel no need to distance its style from that of the original. IacobusAmor 14:23, 18 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

And just as en is not an exclusively American publication, la is not an exclusively Ancient Roman publication.

But let us table this for the time being. Neander has persuaded me far enough to want to hear some more opinions. I'd rather wait for more people to weigh in before I continue arguing with you :) --Iustinus 14:32, 18 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

Iustine, if you're suggesting that autumnus and auctumnus are more or less equipollent variants, I'm afraid that you're overdoing the case. I urge you to find instances of auctumnus in modern editions of Latin authors, based on sound textual criticism. I'm sure that the result will be meagre. Maybe the only locus will be Varro, lat. 6.2.7 Quartum autumnus, ab augendis hominum opibus dictus frugibusque coactis, quasi auctumnus, which bears clear testimony to autumnus being the current form; auctumnus, qualified by quasi, is just one of those numerous pop-etymological instances by which Varro likes to embody an etymological idea. Though not accepted by historical linguists, the etymological idea "au(c)tumnus ab augendo" is commonsensical enough, and therefore it's understandable that it has survived as a quasi-learned hypercorrectism and made its way to medieval mss. ║ If you prefer to use auctumnus in the wake of Sethe, that's a matter of taste. But I'd rather dissuade others from using auctumnus as if it were a normal variant. --Neander 12:56, 18 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

"Equipollent" would be an exaggeration: autumnus is clearly the superior form. I'm trying to argue, rather, that auctumnus is an acceptable form. You do raise some good points, though, and this is not something I can really answer your main challenge right now as I am about to run off for a long weekend to visit family. The OLD, bizarrely, gives both forms but offers no comment whatsoever about the variation. However a quick search seems to indicate that auctumnus fell out of fashion some time after the turn of the century (er... I mean 19th to 20th), and I'd guess not long after. This makes sense, as Sethe was writing in the 1890s. I would argue that our Latin does not have to be fully classical, and indeed it rarely is. However I will concede that perhaps I am crossing the line here, as plenty of orthographical variants might be silently corrected in other cases. I would appreciate it if some of the other wikipedians would weigh in here. --Iustinus 14:15, 18 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

Geheimrat

Consiliarius a secretis. [1] --Alex1011 15:10, 17 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

Hofrat

Consiliarius aulicus [2] --Alex1011 15:11, 17 Iunii 2010 (UTC)

Amtsrat

Fortasse "consiliarius officiarius", sed est semper fons idem: [3] --Alex1011 15:25, 17 Iunii 2010 (UTC)