Disputatio:Domus editoria

De vocabulo editoris, Anglice et Latine

Pars accepta a: Disputatio:Lien (Italia) § Postilla de falsis amicis – Locus opportunior --Grufo

If I am not wrong we would translate the English “editor” with “curator” in Latin (i.e. “someone who takes care”), while we would use the Latin “editor” for the English “publisher”. Hence English “editor” and Latin “editor” would be false friends. --Grufo (disputatio) 18:50, 9 Maii 2023 (UTC)

Latin publishers differ on this. The Bibliotheca Teubneriana seems to favour "edidit" on title pages; the Oxford classical texts use "recognovit"; the corpus Paravianum has "recensuit". A wise man doesn't lightly disagree with A. E. Housman, even though he's long dead, and on his Lucan edition he wrote "... editorum in usum edidit A. E. Housman". Since "ed." is commonly used internationally, I'd stick with it. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 20:27, 9 Maii 2023 (UTC)

But if we use Latin “editor” for English “editor”, what do we use for English “publisher”? Old Latin books often have wordings like “typi + gen.” or “Xxxx impressit” for the publisher; on the other hand edo with the meaning of “publish” is very classical (cfr. Cic., Brut., 19: “ut illos de re publica libros edidisti”). “Recensor” for English “editor” sounds also good. Only Lat. “editor” meaning Eng. “editor” sounds problematic to me. --Grufo (disputatio) 21:41, 9 Maii 2023 (UTC)

Addition. I am seeing now that Lat. “redactor” can also be used for English “editor”. --Grufo (disputatio) 21:57, 9 Maii 2023 (UTC)

2nd Addition. “Since "ed." is commonly used internationally”: If you mean “ed.” not meaning “publisher”, you might clash against Italian (where “ed.” always means “editore”, i.e. “publisher”). For example, this is an Italian bibliography entry (you can find it here – ISBN: 9788868353476):

• Ejsing, M & Tønder, L 2019, La democrazia radicale al tempo del cambiamento climatico. in F Giangiacomo Feltrinelli (ed.), Per Cosa Lottare: Le frontiere del progressismo. Milan, pp. 149.

  ↳ Here “ed.” means publisher (Feltrinelli is a famous Italian publisher), whereas, in this specific case, what an English speaker would call “editors” are Biale, E. and Fumagalli, C. (you can see them listed here).

That said, I have no idea if a term derived from Latin “editor” always means “publisher” in other languages as well besides Italian. But the point that I am trying to make is that if you truly want to be understood internationally you would need a Latin word different from “editor” (which normally means “publisher” in Latin as well) for meaning English “editor”. --Grufo (disputatio) 00:42, 10 Maii 2023 (UTC)

You don't need to deploy a word for publisher if you follow any of several widely used styleguides, such as the so-called author-date method of the Chicago Manual of Style (pretty much the standard in the humanities in North America); nor in a bibliography do you need to state the number of pages in a book:

• Ejsing, M., and L. Tønder. 2019. "La democrazia radicale al tempo del cambiamento climatico." In Per Cosa Lottare: Le frontiere del progressismo, ed. E. Biale and C. Fumagalli. Milan: F. Giangiacomo Feltrinelli.

If you're citing the book instead of the chapter, then the entry becomes:

• Biale, E., and C. Fumagalli, eds. 2019. Per Cosa Lottare: Le frontiere del progressismo. Milan: F. Giangiacomo Feltrinelli.

(Incidentally, presses in North America discourage abbreviations for authors' & editors' names in the humanities.) Polysemy occurs in just about all languages, so having two meanings for Latin editor isn't a surprise, though it does introduce complications. For English publisher (of a book), Cassell's advises classicists to say qui librum edendum curat. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 02:57, 10 Maii 2023 (UTC)

I agree about not deploying a word for “publisher” in bibliography entries. However we need both words in some specific contexts. For example, imagine you want to write the previous entry as a table; in English you would write

Title	Per Cosa Lottare: Le frontiere del progressismo
Publisher	Feltrinelli
Editors	Biale, E. and Fumagalli, C.

In Italian you would write

Titolo	Per Cosa Lottare: Le frontiere del progressismo
Editore	Feltrinelli
Curatori	Biale, E. e Fumagalli, C.

But how would you write it in Latin? My take is that I would write

Titulus	Per Cosa Lottare: Le frontiere del progressismo
Editor	Feltrinelli
Redactores	Biale, E. et Fumagalli, C.

--Grufo (disputatio) 11:00, 10 Maii 2023 (UTC)

That punctuation (omitting a comma after E.) is illogical. It gives you three things: (1) Biale, (2) E. et Fumagalli, (3) C. It's rather like omitting the (obligatory, nonnegotiable) comma after the year in complete dates, as in "July 4, 1776 was when. . . ." In any case, bibliographies in Vicipaedia don't use tables. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 12:17, 10 Maii 2023 (UTC)

You are referring to the Oxford comma, and using it or not really depends on the regional variation. But it is completely out of scope here; what I was trying to do was to differentiate between English “publisher” and English “editor” in Latin language. --Grufo (disputatio) 17:32, 10 Maii 2023 (UTC)

No, I'm NOT referring to the "Oxford comma." And yes, this is a long way from the question of what "Nomi d'Italia - AAVV, De Agostini" means. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 20:20, 10 Maii 2023 (UTC)

It is really an optional comma – there is a reason why it is debated and we should not bring that debate here. I even agree that it is preferable for the eye to have it (and most conventions about bibliographies use it) – when I write bibliographies I normally rely on LaTeX and so I conform to the standard that I am using in that moment without too much effort. But if you open a strictly logical argument I will argue that putting a comma before the conjunction is the illogical thing, because a conjunction is equivalent to a comma and therefore writing “Biale, E., and Fumagalli, C.” is equivalent to writing “Biale, E.,, Fumagalli, C.”. Yet the eye will enjoy marking a pause even if it is illogical and so be it. I am fine with discussing side questions, what I can't understand is why you avoid answering the question from which all this arose (i.e. how to distinguish a publisher from an editor in Latin). --Grufo (disputatio) 22:18, 10 Maii 2023 (UTC)

New lemma

The equivalence "domus editoria" = "editor" seems erroneous, based on the sources cited. "Editor" in the Online Etymology Dictionary (which is about English, of course) says "one who puts forth": that's a person, not a publishing house. Similarly, the title page cited, which is in good Latin, says "apud editorem L. G. Desgranges". That's a person too. The Latin term for a person who edits and/or publishes is absolutely relevant here, but it doesn't belong in the lemmas in the first clause, because that makes it look as if it's a synonym of "domus editoria". Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 09:20, 15 Maii 2023 (UTC)

Of course, editor cannot be used for a company, it must be used for a person. It's not very different from other activities that can be presented as run by companies or, instead, by individual enterpreneurs who have a company behind. The difference is almost only nominal, it is just the way the publishing house likes to be presented to the public (i.e. sometimes a publishing house prefers to be presented with the name of its owner/founder). So, when you have publishers like A. C. McClurg, Alfred A. Knopf, André Deutsch, E. P. Dutton, J. M. Dent, and others, it is clear that they are all publishing houses, but they don't like to present themselves as companies but as individual publishers. It is tradition to use the singular editor (“publisher”) for these cases, as the example in the article shows. I added to the text “vel ergolabus” to hint that you wouldn't use editor for a publishing house but only if you are talking about its owner. Maybe a clearer solution can be found. --Grufo (disputatio) 13:17, 15 Maii 2023 (UTC)

The examples cited in the footnotes to "editor" don't show any such tradition, though, if it exists, one may find others that do! [Yes, I now think that the examples show this.] OK, I'll try a clearer solution: see if it works. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:24, 15 Maii 2023 (UTC)

Now I am busy, but later I will search for other sources like "apud editorem L. G. Desgranges" that mention individual publishers. --Grufo (disputatio) 13:29, 15 Maii 2023 (UTC)

See what you think.

I added alternatives to "impensis propriis" because, sadly for authors, that's not how all publishers work. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:39, 15 Maii 2023 (UTC)

Looks good. I had also a strange feeling when I saw impensis propriis, but then I only added a mention to editor without touching the page. --Grufo (disputatio) 13:50, 15 Maii 2023 (UTC)

Since "societas, officina, domus" are all feminine, it might be worth looking for "editrix" in this sense in modern Latin. Like Portuguese editora, which is shorthand for casa editora. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 14:31, 15 Maii 2023 (UTC)

But -tor and -trix can only be persons (and they are nouns), so a domus can only be editoria (from -torius, -toria, -torium, adj.). An editrix instead will be a woman publisher (i.e. the woman owning a publishing house). It is true that in Italian for “publishing house” they say casa editrice (and editrice is literally editrix), but in Italian -tore and -trice can be used for objects, while that is not the case of Latin -tor and -trix. For the same reason they say motore in Italian but we say motrum. See also Category:Latin terms suffixed with -trix_(en). --Grufo (disputatio) 16:28, 15 Maii 2023 (UTC)

I'm not saying you're wrong about that, but I have found examples none the less. Probably one of these was at the back of my mind when I made the suggestion. Eventually there are more examples, and more varied, than I expected. Estimable modern Latinists, e.g. around the Vatican, think "editrix" in apposition to "domus, societas, libraria" is quite OK. I'm going to stop looking now :) Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 18:17, 15 Maii 2023 (UTC)

Sometimes people try to learn Spanish and Italian at the same time, and the result is really horrible. The two languages are so similar that people start to mix up things from both languages in a sort of lingua franca located in the middle between the two. What I am saying is that it is possible – especially for Romance-language-speakers – to mix their language with Latin in subtle ways that sometimes are not easily detectable. For example, look at all the pages Vicipaedia that have debere + infinitive for expressing what in English you would express with “must” + infinitive. It just comes natural when several Romance languages use a descendant of debeo to say “must”, and many languages in any case use some verb + inf. to express the same concept. Just yesterday I corrected one case. The problem is that that construction in Classical Latin was used almost only when one “must” do something due to moral necessity, otherwise other constructions were normally preferred. It is a mistake that even someone that knows about it can do, because it comes just natural to use debere.

All this is for saying that even in the Vatican, surrounded by a country that says casa editrice, it might come just natural to say domus editrix. After all these kind of errors are what makes sprachbunde possible. But I am still convinced that it would sound quite alien in Classical Latin. But of course, if you found Classical examples of -tor and -trix used for objects (that are not somehow personifications, like Cic. “philosophia, expultrix vitiorum”) I would be very curious to know about them! --Grufo (disputatio) 00:01, 16 Maii 2023 (UTC)

Addition. An apparently arguable case would be societas editrix, which on first thought does not sound too wrong even to me. There are groups of words that are formally “things”, but de facto are “people”. Societas can be one of these words. However on second thought a question follows: what if instead of societas we had another of such words, but a neuter one, like concilium for example; would we then say concilium editrum? So, again, on second thought societas editrix might not be the ideal, and I would still favour societas editoria. --Grufo (disputatio) 00:42, 16 Maii 2023 (UTC)

In French law, and (for all I know) in others, an association or company is a fr:personne morale. And what you say about Italian speakers writing Latin is clearly relevant. Anyway, no one's suggested changing the current pagename: it's just the apparently endless range of possible lemmas! Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 08:20, 16 Maii 2023 (UTC)

Many countries have something similar, the notion of a "legal person." IacobusAmor (disputatio) 11:59, 16 Maii 2023 (UTC)

That existed in ancient Rome too. But I am still skeptical about editrix for anything other than a woman publisher! :-) --Grufo (disputatio) 15:22, 16 Maii 2023 (UTC)

What about Legio VI Victrix? A legion isn't a publisher, but surely it's a kind of corporate body. The suffix (tr)ix can mark an adjective. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 16:47, 16 Maii 2023 (UTC)

Is French syntax seen in phrases like mission civilisatrice a direct descendant of Latin syntax seen in phrases like Legio Victrix? IacobusAmor (disputatio) 03:25, 18 Maii 2023 (UTC)

Not exactly (you have that also in Italian). Differently than in Latin, where -tor, -trix and -trum are only nouns, -teur and -trice in French and -tore and -trice in Italian can be either nouns or adjectives (#1, #2). So, while French mission civilisatrice would translate, plain and simple, as “civilizing mission”, Latin missio *civilizatrix would translate as something like “mission, the civilizer one”. Etymologically speaking yes, French -teur and -trice are the direct descendants of Latin -tor and -trix. --Grufo (disputatio) 03:49, 18 Maii 2023 (UTC)

Legio VI Victrix is a good example of groups of people treated as a single person. As I said before, societas editrix is arguable, more non-standard than wrong; it just feels unusual, like connecting a word that normally refers to humans to a thing. Imagine saying in English “philosopher society” not in the sense of “society of philosophers”, but in the sense of “a society that is a philosopher”; I think that that is a bit what societas editrix feels like. On the other hand you can say in English “winner society” in the sense of “a society that is a winner” (“victrix”). We also have societas mercatoria that would suggest that societas editoria would be the correct choice. --Grufo (disputatio) 17:22, 16 Maii 2023 (UTC)

As far as Vicipaedia is concerned, societas editoria is currently the least promising of the five options we have found: it is an alternative lemma in PONS, a tertiary source, and is not cited from any sources of published Latin text. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 18:31, 16 Maii 2023 (UTC)

Domus editoria is definitely the most standard term used. Societas editoria is less present, but it does appear in lexicons. For instance, David Morgan has taberna editoria, taberna libraria editoria, societas editoria and domus editoria as the options for English “publishing house” – see Morgan, David (2013). Lexicon Anglum et Latinum. p. 112 . See also the term on latinlexicon.org and Nuntii Latini mensis Iunii 2019. On the other hand, societas editrix does appear in few texts, but I did not find it in any lexicon. --Grufo (disputatio) 19:27, 16 Maii 2023 (UTC)

But domus editrix isn't without examples, one of which is the "Domus editrix et typographica Norcopiensis" from 1905. IacobusAmor (disputatio) 03:20, 17 Maii 2023 (UTC)

Yes, all the alternatives discussed here have attestations. But I was focusing on lexicons (i.e. tertiary sources); I could not find societas editrix in any lexicon, while domus editrix appears only in an online Austrian lexicon published in 2023 that still gives domus editoria as first choice – cfr. “Verlag” in Latinophilus, Petrus L. (8 Ianuarii 2023). Lexicon Latinum Hodiernum vel Vocabularium Latinitatis Huius Aetatis. Lentiae: Privilegium impressorium Petri Lucusaltiani Latinophili (Editio XXIII electronica). p. 112 . --Grufo (disputatio) 04:19, 17 Maii 2023 (UTC)