Disputatio:Georgius Washingtonius

message: Prima nominis Latini attestatio fere est Washington, Washingtonis, in libro Georgii Washingtonis Vita, a William Lance (1791–1840) anno 1836 edito. Saeculo XVIII vel XIX attestatum est nomen Washingtonius, Washingtonii? Mirabiliter dicit Traupman nomen (urbis) esse Vashingtonia. IacobusAmor 13:33, 18 Iulii 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Nomen

message: Texia addidit: Washingtonius agricola bonus erat. Mountus Vernonus casa et agri Washingtonio erat. Servos eius post mortium libertavit. Quod est: 'Washington was being a good farmer. Mountus Vernonus was being Washington's hut and fields. He froid someone else's slaves after his douths'. Prima sententia est POV, altera est absurda, tertia est falsa. Haec stultitia delenda est. IacobusAmor 02:27, 6 Decembris 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The sentence actually reads "Washington was a good farmer. Mount Vernon was the house and farm of Washington. He freed his slaves following his death." --Texia 02:48, 6 Decembris 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: :O would that it were so! IacobusAmor 02:53, 6 Decembris 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: ::Hodie legimus: Washingtonius agricola bonus fuit. Mountus Vernonus casa et agri Washingtonii fuit. Servos eius post mortium libertavit. = 'Washington was a good farmer.(1) Mountus Vernonus(2) was Washington's hut(3) and fields. He later(4) froid(5) somebody else's(6) slaves of deaths.(7)'
replies: text: :::1. This has a POV. (How can we know the quality of his farming? And maybe, one might counterargue with an alternative POV, because he didn't free his slaves, and because he did foster alcoholism by making & selling spirits, he was morally a bad farmer.) It's therefore against Vicipaedia's policy on points of view. (And if it were true, so what? Why would an encyclopedia take the trouble to say this and then to say no more about it?)

text: :::2. Mountus is just plain silly.

text: :::3. Casa 'hut, cottage, cabin' is a bizarre way of characterizing a colonnaded mansion.

text: :::4. Post must be an adverb ('later, behind, besides', &c.) because it has no noun to modify.

text: :::5. A verb libertare, though its probable sense as a frequentative of liberare is guessable, seems not to be a classical word; at least it isn't in any of the (three) classical dictionaries I checked. If it's a legitimate frequentative, libertavit should mean 'he often freed, he repeatedly freed, he was in the habit of freeing', or something like that (but then it might feel some attraction to the imperfect tense).

text: :::6. If he freed his own slaves, the text would say servos suos (A&G 299) or just plain servos, so eius implies he freed somebody else's slaves.

text: :::7. The only noun available for mortium 'of deaths' (genitive plural, if indeed that's the right form; it isn't listed at A&G 71 among the monosyllables in -s preceded by a vowel) is servos; hence 'slaves of deaths', whatever that might mean.

text: ::Earlier, Texia used the spelling genative, an English-language error. That's why I was hoping she was a tiro, who hadn't gotten past the first conjugation yet. But she insists that this farrago "actually reads" in ways that it doesn't, and that it's "good Latin"—so an allowance for eager effort, granted out of the natural generosity of the season, goes out the window. ¶ I love these puzzles! :) IacobusAmor 13:46, 6 Decembris 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: :::No doubt the sentence posed by Texia was wrong and perhaps also absurd at many levels. However, I think it is reading too much into what Texia wrote above to assume that he/she is insisting that the sentence as originally written was correct. Rather, one could as easily read the statement above as he/she merely indicating what was intended to be said in the first place, no?--Rafaelgarcia 15:06, 6 Decembris 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: ::::No. Let's not assume either way. What we know for sure is that she's telling us how the Latin "actually reads." IacobusAmor 15:46, 6 Decembris 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: :::::Looking at the article as it now is, and recalling that it's one of the 1000 most important articles for Wikipedias, we can't afford to be cocky about our Latin ... or the consequentiality of our prose. To me, this article says "help!" And the three pieces of information that Texia wanted to insert are not without their importance.

text: :::::I know how tempting it is just to delete faulty Latin added to an otherwise passable page. A preferable response, I think, is to retain the information and improve it. (For example -- at the level this article has reached -- to say that he was an "admired" farmer rather than a "good" farmer would take the POV out of the statement.) Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 15:52, 6 Decembris 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Sentence