Disputatio:Abbreviatio

message: The link Acronymum redirects here, but that noun wants its own article, as in Akronym. IacobusAmor 19:44, 28 Martii 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Vehementer assentior! --Neander 13:34, 29 Martii 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: : ... et morà satis longà interposità opus aggressus sum. :-) Neander (disputatio) 09:24, 18 Septembris 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Bad redirect

message: Pantocrator, you changed the lemma from sigla (-orum, pl.) to siglum, and commented "Huh?" According to Cassell's, the Latin for 'mark of abbreviation' is sigla, -orum (pl.), not siglum, -i (sing.). IacobusAmor 02:47, 29 Martii 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: First the lemma was actually siglum, -orum which is certainly wrong.

text: The word is a contraction of sigillum, which can be used in the singular. L&S give only a plural use, but with a plural meaning. I would guess the word to be largely post-classical; Whitaker's gives only the singular. Unless we have a citation for the plural form with a singular meaning, I think we should keep it a normal word and not a plurale tantum; that's how it is used in scholarly work and we shouldn't be perverse. Pantocrator 03:02, 29 Martii 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: :So it's "perverse" to respect D. P. Simpson, Assistant Master and formerly Head of the Classical Department at Eton College, the authority who compiled the latest version of Cassell's Classical Dictionary? Why? IacobusAmor 10:55, 29 Martii 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: ::Please quote the exact words from Cassell's that lead you to believe this is a plurale tantum. The reason it is perverse it because it not only prevents disntinguishing singular and plural but that it contradicts widespread modern usage, including in Latin. Just because it does not occur in the singular in classical times does not mean it could not. Pantocrator 11:46, 29 Martii 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: :::"mark of [abbreviation], sigla (-orum, plur.: legal t. t.)." That "t.t." means 'technical term' (it's evidently not an everyday word, but one typically found in legal contexts). IacobusAmor 11:50, 29 Martii 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: ::::Cassell's is in line with Lewis & Short on this. But a dictionary can't be an authority on usage beyond its own date, and I, too, am aware of siglum as a singular in modern Latin (not legal, incidentally, but palaeographical, in editions of classical texts).

text: ::::Since we prefer classical usage (for which Lewis & Short is an authority: I don't have Cassell's and don't know its exact remit) we might still decide to keep the plural form in our lemma (or so I would say), but we should at least footnote the fact that the singular occurs in recent Latin. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 11:56, 29 Martii 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: :::::Agreed. A larger point is that the present lemma seems not to be classical; at least abbreviatio isn't in Ainsworth's, Cassell's, and White's dictionaries, all of which, for the English word abbreviation, give something like compendium & contractio, referring only to the shortening of orationes. So the English word abbreviation, to these eminent compilers of English-Latin and Latin-English dictionaries, meant something more like 'précis' or 'summary' than what the article is trying to define: abbreviatio basically, if it means anything, means merely 'a shortening', and shortenings come in several forms, none of which the given definition mentions. IacobusAmor 12:11, 29 Martii 2010 (UTC)
Neither is entirely classical, but then I don't think there was a standard classical term for this. An encyclopedia ought to be descriptive, not prescriptive: if people do in fact use abbreuiatio et siglum for this, that's what we should list. Pantocrator 13:19, 29 Martii 2010 (UTC)
===Sigla: nomen Italianum===
Rather than neuter plural, it would appear to be feminine singular in Italian (this shift, IIRC, is found in other words too). Here's the start of Cappelli's preface to Lexicon Abbreviaturarum (N.B.: non Abbreviationum):

text: Il sistema brachigrafico del Medio-Evo trasse la sua origine da quello delle sigle, cioè lettere isolate rappresentanti un'intera parola, molto in voga fin dai tempi romani, ed in parte anche dalle note tironiane, specie di stenografia che serviva in quei tempi principalmente per raccogliere i discorsi pronunciati in pubblico. Di ambidue questi sistemi, cioè delle sigle e delle note tironiane, rimangono traccie palesi in quello che tanto di diffuse e perfezionò, specialmente in Italia, dal secolo X a tutto il XV e del quale ci studieremo di esporre ora la regole generali.
Can the modern word sigla (fem. sing.) rightly be regarded as the same word as the Latin word sigla (n. pl.), even though it's probably an evolved form of it?  IacobusAmor 12:27, 29 Martii 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: :That's Italian, not Latin, so don't let's worry too much. But in fact it is quite common for a Latin neuter plural to become a feminine singular in modern Romance languages, because they have no neuter gender (except Romanian) and the Latin neuter plural has a termination easily identified or confused with that of the feminine singular. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 12:37, 29 Martii 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: ::De: "That's Italian, not Latin."—Lexicon Abbreviaturarum looks like Latin to me! IacobusAmor 17:58, 29 Martii 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: :::I was answering your question about sigla f.sg. I understood you to be saying that it was an Italian word. Perhaps I misunderstood you. Just stick to my principal point: "don't let's worry too much" :) Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 19:45, 29 Martii 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Sigla

message: Rather than neuter plural, it would appear to be feminine singular in Italian (this shift, IIRC, is found in other words too). Here's the start of Cappelli's preface to Lexicon Abbreviaturarum (N.B.: non Abbreviationum):
replies: text: Il sistema brachigrafico del Medio-Evo trasse la sua origine da quello delle sigle, cioè lettere isolate rappresentanti un'intera parola, molto in voga fin dai tempi romani, ed in parte anche dalle note tironiane, specie di stenografia che serviva in quei tempi principalmente per raccogliere i discorsi pronunciati in pubblico. Di ambidue questi sistemi, cioè delle sigle e delle note tironiane, rimangono traccie palesi in quello che tanto di diffuse e perfezionò, specialmente in Italia, dal secolo X a tutto il XV e del quale ci studieremo di esporre ora la regole generali.
Can the modern word sigla (fem. sing.) rightly be regarded as the same word as the Latin word sigla (n. pl.), even though it's probably an evolved form of it?  IacobusAmor 12:27, 29 Martii 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: :That's Italian, not Latin, so don't let's worry too much. But in fact it is quite common for a Latin neuter plural to become a feminine singular in modern Romance languages, because they have no neuter gender (except Romanian) and the Latin neuter plural has a termination easily identified or confused with that of the feminine singular. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 12:37, 29 Martii 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: ::De: "That's Italian, not Latin."—Lexicon Abbreviaturarum looks like Latin to me! IacobusAmor 17:58, 29 Martii 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: :::I was answering your question about sigla f.sg. I understood you to be saying that it was an Italian word. Perhaps I misunderstood you. Just stick to my principal point: "don't let's worry too much" :) Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 19:45, 29 Martii 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Sigla: nomen Italianum

message: Lemma est abbreviatio, sed nomen Italianum, abbreviatura, ex opinabili nomine Latino abbreviatura deducitur? IacobusAmor 12:15, 29 Martii 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Non latine! Pantocrator 13:13, 29 Martii 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: :Lexicon Abbreviaturarum non est conlocutio Latina? IacobusAmor 17:58, 29 Martii 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: ::Latina est, sed medii aevi; abbreviatio exeuntis antiquitatis est; breviatio usque ab Augustino reperitur; si quis vocabulum classicae Latinitatis quaesiverit, contractionem reperiet aut ad locutiones sicut in breve, in brevius, breviter decurret. --Neander 18:48, 29 Martii 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: :::Traupman: 'abbreviation' = nota. Vide Notae tironianae. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 11:35, 18 Septembris 2014 (UTC)

text: Abbreviatura etsi bona Italiana vel Hispanica potest, sed abbreuiatio sola est Latina per multos saeculos. Pantocrator 13:13, 29 Martii 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: :Quando coeperunt "illi saeculi"? IacobusAmor 13:17, 29 Martii 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: ::(The quotation marks, perhaps too subtly, were making a point.) IacobusAmor (disputatio) 11:40, 18 Septembris 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Lemma