Disputatio:Clavus

message: Clavus also means "peg" or "handle of the rudder on a ship" (hense "the helm"), and so on. So perhaps this should be under "clavus ferreus" or "clavus (ferreus)" or... yuck, but "clavus metallicus" (since surely not all modern nails are iron or even steel)? --Iustinus 22:25, 7 Augusti 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well I feel kind of odd about making it "clavus metallicus" because I think it would be important to illustrate what they've been made out of throughout the ages (including wood and fine stones). I for one think it'd be a bit misleading to have "nail (metal)" as the title and then say somewhere in the article "nails can also be made out of wood or stone." It'd be so much easier if the Romans had just decided what word denotes what object... Alexanderr 22:31, 7 Augusti 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: :Cassell's says clavus is good for English 'nail' and 'screw', but :en:Screw seems to include information on bolts, for which term Cassell's has obex, sera, pessulus, claustrum—but those may be the wrong kind of bolt, not the riveting kind, and if so, then clavus should be good for 'bolt' as well as 'nail' & 'screw', no? IacobusAmor 15:35, 12 Aprilis 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: ::Traupman and L&S and Whitaker give cochlea for "screw", which of course raises disambig with the animal. But I think it looks neater than clavus spiralis or some such. -- Ioscius (disp) 16:46, 12 Aprilis 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: :::That information gives us a clear conceptual choice: Traupman & L&S and Whitaker imply that a screw is a kind of spiral, not unlike a snail; Cassell's implies that a screw is a kind of fastener, not unlike a nail. Which is it? If we favor the concrete, Cassell's looks apter to me. Snails slide around on their own, and don't fasten anything; nails (and pegs & plugs, as White's also has for clavus) don't do much of anything beyond fastening one thing to another. ¶ Using cochlea sets up at least a triple confusion: (1) snail, (2) screw, (3) part of the inner ear (:en:Cochlea). IacobusAmor 17:52, 12 Aprilis 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: ::::For 'screw', would clavus coclearis work? IacobusAmor 17:54, 12 Aprilis 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: :::::But cochlea' doesn't just mean "spiral." Per L&S it was used to describe the Archimedes Screw, as well as the "screw" of a winepress. I can think of at least one publshed citation (though a modern one) for cochlea meaning "screw" in "our" sense of the word, and I suspect this use has a history. --Iustinus 00:32, 13 Aprilis 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: ::::::That's interesting, but :en:Archimedes' Screw isn't a screw of the sort discussed in :en:Screw (that is, a naillike object used to fasten two other objects together). If the Merriam-Webster people are to be believed, our word screw reflects Latin scrofa 'sow', in its medieval sense: an engine for undermining walls (which may in its shape take us back to Archimedes!). In that case, we might have support for calling a screw a scrofa. :) IacobusAmor 01:03, 13 Aprilis 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: :::::::Um, no it is not the same kind of screw. But it is a kind of screw: "Archimedische Schraube," "Tornillo de Arquímedes", "Vis d'Archimède"... in fact, of the 23 interwiki links from :en:Archimedes' Screw, only three of them don't contain that language's word for "screw" (the exceptions are Arabic, Japanese and Chinese). Plus I do have attestations:

text: :::::::*Interprete Vido Angelino Scrúgulus et Rádius contra Procéllam p. 29 "Eia! Date mihi cóchleam non parvam!" (whereupon he is handed a screw)

text: :::::::*Calepinus Novus: "Vis de menuisier ¶ cóchlea, ae, f. [C. Maire, R.J. Boscovich, De litteraria expeditione per pontificiam ditionem... suscepta Romae, 1775, p. 60"

text: :::::::*(Morgan doesn't give a word for screw, for some reason, but he does give "cochlea extractoria" as one translation of "corkscrew.")

text: :::::::So I think you can believe me when I say cochlea is an established term for screw. Smith's English Latin Dictionary btw gives cochlea as well, but lists as an alternate clavus cochleatus (which, I had already been thinking, is much better than cochlearis). --Iustinus 04:35, 13 Aprilis 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: :::::::::I started a new page Cochlea (instrumentum) and supplied the appropriate disambiguation page.--Rafaelgarcia 05:53, 13 Aprilis 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Types of ''Clavus''