Disputatio:Aemilius Durkheim
Gravis[fontem recensere]
"wrote some very heavy books" -- this may be true, but I have a feeling we use "gravis" in the metaphorical sense a bit more freely than our classical models. Am I wrong? Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 10:18, 12 Martii 2008 (UTC)
- Gravis = 'important, influential'. I suppose potens would work. IacobusAmor 10:35, 12 Martii 2008 (UTC)
- I didn't make a positive suggestion, did I? I can see a political crisis being gravis, or maybe a politician (Gordon Brown may possibly be gravis; Tony Blair wasn't); Livy once used gravis of a city, but it surely wouldn't be a normal way to describe a city. The word seems usually to go together with other words like severus with a disturbing or crisis-ridden or down-in-the-mouth connotation. If somebody told me a book was gravis, I think I would require a stiff drink before I started reading it. Maybe this would be true of Durkheim's books anyway. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:16, 12 Martii 2008 (UTC)
- You've hit the nail on the head: drinks are in order! Durkheim's writings are among the dullest weighty works I've read. Of course that was a long time ago, when, a callow stripling, I was more interested in other things, and Durkheim's sociology is indubitably full of the famous French precision, and it was puissant enough to have brought into existence an entire academic field, so it must have something to it, but I don't recall finding much imagination in it. Part of its problem is that it was produced before the development of modern statistics. IacobusAmor 13:26, 12 Martii 2008 (UTC)
- I can't see a book being potens, either, though a politician might be. George Bush is certainly potens, but I don't see him as gravis. For important and influential, as describing a book or a political movement, I think I would suggest "magni momenti". Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:16, 12 Martii 2008 (UTC)
- I didn't make a positive suggestion, did I? I can see a political crisis being gravis, or maybe a politician (Gordon Brown may possibly be gravis; Tony Blair wasn't); Livy once used gravis of a city, but it surely wouldn't be a normal way to describe a city. The word seems usually to go together with other words like severus with a disturbing or crisis-ridden or down-in-the-mouth connotation. If somebody told me a book was gravis, I think I would require a stiff drink before I started reading it. Maybe this would be true of Durkheim's books anyway. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:16, 12 Martii 2008 (UTC)