Summary:  I get picky about Latin.  Press J to skip down or K to skip up. · • · peanutbutterandjamzee: waterloggedtomorrow: peanutbutterandjamzee: waterloggedtomorrow: peanutbutterandjamzee: waterloggedtomorrow: [Text: 100. Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardia et cerebellum. When you have their full attention their hearts and minds will follow.] whatdiscworldtaughtme: 100. Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardia et cerebellum. that’s… not actually… what this says… That’s the point. Um, at this point in the book, the great god Om, trapped in the body of a tortoise, is directing the eagle carrying him by clamping its testicles in his jaws. And then he mentions this maxim, and translates it thusly, and it’s sort of amusing in its halfhearted attempts at being non-vulgar. Small Gods. By Terry Pratchett. Explains it much better than I ever could. but but it’s wrong it’s not even “he who has balls has heart and brain” because “habes” and “habeas” is singular 2nd person so it’s he who you have balls which doesn’t make any sense IMPROPER LATIN UPSETS ME But cuius is genitive. So: “[He] whose testicles you have, you will have [his] heart and mind.” Which is a poor translation. But yeah? Ohhhhh you are correct and I’m a silly. <3 Hope you don’t mind my interrupting, but bad Latin irks me a bit too, and this Latin is pretty bad.  Yes, ‘cujus’ is genitive, no objection to that.  But the switch from indicative to subjunctive (‘habés’ to ‘habeás’) makes no sense.  If the point is to make a prediction — if you have the balls, you will definitely acquire the hearts and minds — you would use the future indicative (‘habébis’).  Using the present subjunctive makes it into a wish — if you have the balls, may you acquire the hearts and minds — which rather implies that having the balls is not at all a sufficient condition for getting the hearts and minds but in fact there’s a distinct possibility it might not happen.  You could even use the present indicative again to imply that if you have the balls then you necessarily already have the hearts and minds.  But not the subjunctive. I also suspect one really needs another preposition to make it clear that the hearts and minds belong to the same person as the balls: ‘cujus testiculós habés, ejus cardia et cerebellum habébis’ (verb at the end is more usual).  I think as it is it reads more like ‘The one whose balls you have, may you also have some unspecified hearts and mind’.  And yes, ‘hearts and mind’ is not a typo: ‘cerebellum’ is singular and ‘cardia’ must be plural, so we seem to be talking about a Time Lord or an octopus here. Also ‘cerebellum’ is a very rare word for ‘mind’ or, more literally, ‘brain’.  The more common word for ‘brain’ is ‘cerebrum’, but if you want to say ‘mind’ you’d generally use ‘méns’ or ‘animus’.  ’Testiculus’ is slightly non-standard too, but not so much as to really raise an eyebrow.  But ‘cardia’ is, frankly, the nadir of this whole business because it is not a Latin word.  It’s a transliteration of the ancient Greek word for ‘hearts’, and while Latin-speakers from ancient Rome to today have sometimes borrowed Greek words when they couldn’t lay their hands on suitable Latin ones, there has always been a perfectly serviceable Latin word for ‘heart’, which is ‘cor’ (or ‘corda’ if we’re dead set on this person having more than one heart). It’s been a long time since I read Small gods and I can’t remember the context — perhaps it’s meant to be bad Latin and we’re meant to have a chuckle at how bad it is.  But whether deliberately so or not, it’s definitely bad.

Summary:  I get picky about Latin.  Press J to skip down or K to skip up.

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peanutbutterandjamzee:

waterloggedtomorrow:

peanutbutterandjamzee:

waterloggedtomorrow:

peanutbutterandjamzee:

waterloggedtomorrow:

[Text: 100. Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardia et cerebellum. When you have their full attention their hearts and minds will follow.]

whatdiscworldtaughtme:

100. Cuius testiculos habes, habeas cardia et cerebellum.

that’s… not actually… what this says…

That’s the point.

Um, at this point in the book, the great god Om, trapped in the body of a tortoise, is directing the eagle carrying him by clamping its testicles in his jaws. And then he mentions this maxim, and translates it thusly, and it’s sort of amusing in its halfhearted attempts at being non-vulgar.

Small Gods. By Terry Pratchett. Explains it much better than I ever could.

but

but it’s wrong

it’s not even “he who has balls has heart and brain”

because “habes” and “habeas” is singular 2nd person

so it’s he who you have balls

which doesn’t make

any sense

IMPROPER LATIN UPSETS ME

But cuius is genitive. So:

“[He] whose testicles you have, you will have [his] heart and mind.”

Which is a poor translation. But yeah?

Ohhhhh you are correct and I’m a silly. <3

Hope you don’t mind my interrupting, but bad Latin irks me a bit too, and this Latin is pretty bad.  Yes, ‘cujus’ is genitive, no objection to that.  But the switch from indicative to subjunctive (‘habés’ to ‘habeás’) makes no sense.  If the point is to make a prediction — if you have the balls, you will definitely acquire the hearts and minds — you would use the future indicative (‘habébis’).  Using the present subjunctive makes it into a wish — if you have the balls, may you acquire the hearts and minds — which rather implies that having the balls is not at all a sufficient condition for getting the hearts and minds but in fact there’s a distinct possibility it might not happen.  You could even use the present indicative again to imply that if you have the balls then you necessarily already have the hearts and minds.  But not the subjunctive.

I also suspect one really needs another preposition to make it clear that the hearts and minds belong to the same person as the balls: ‘cujus testiculós habés, ejus cardia et cerebellum habébis’ (verb at the end is more usual).  I think as it is it reads more like ‘The one whose balls you have, may you also have some unspecified hearts and mind’.  And yes, ‘hearts and mind’ is not a typo: ‘cerebellum’ is singular and ‘cardia’ must be plural, so we seem to be talking about a Time Lord or an octopus here.

Also ‘cerebellum’ is a very rare word for ‘mind’ or, more literally, ‘brain’.  The more common word for ‘brain’ is ‘cerebrum’, but if you want to say ‘mind’ you’d generally use ‘méns’ or ‘animus’.  ’Testiculus’ is slightly non-standard too, but not so much as to really raise an eyebrow.  But ‘cardia’ is, frankly, the nadir of this whole business because it is not a Latin word.  It’s a transliteration of the ancient Greek word for ‘hearts’, and while Latin-speakers from ancient Rome to today have sometimes borrowed Greek words when they couldn’t lay their hands on suitable Latin ones, there has always been a perfectly serviceable Latin word for ‘heart’, which is ‘cor’ (or ‘corda’ if we’re dead set on this person having more than one heart).

It’s been a long time since I read Small gods and I can’t remember the context — perhaps it’s meant to be bad Latin and we’re meant to have a chuckle at how bad it is.  But whether deliberately so or not, it’s definitely bad.