Disputatio:Monitrum

There seems to be a misunderstanding here about how LCD screens work. They in general do not reflect light, almost all of them emit light. If they didn't emit light you wouldn't be able to read them in the dark.--Rafaelgarcia 01:08, 6 Aprilis 2008 (UTC)

You're right, of course! Sometimes (often-) my Geisteswissenschaftler grasp of the hardware world is cavalierly imperfect!   :–)   --Neander 01:47, 6 Aprilis 2008 (UTC)

Why is scrinium directed here?

Scrinium is a chest, bookcase, or, in Medaeval Latin a reliquary and hence a shrine. If it also means a computer monitor in modern Latin, then there should be a disambiguation thingy.82.36.94.228 16:28, 4 Ianuarii 2009 (UTC)

For some reason this was never corrected. We still have no article covering the real range of meanings of "scrinium". Rather than delete the redirect, I have redirected it to Scriptorium (discretiva), which at least deals with one sense of "scrinium". Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:47, 25 Martii 2023 (UTC)

Monitrum or monitorium?

For the title, should we prefer monitrum – Leo Latinus (17 Augusti 2015). "Epistula LXXXVI". Epistula Leoninae: 12  – or monitorium – VOCABULA COMPUTATRALIA (Anglice, Latine)? --Grufo (disputatio) 09:45, 25 Martii 2023 (UTC)

Both sources are of the same weight, so far as I can see. If you plan to improve the article, I think you are free to choose. Andrew Dalby (disputatio) 13:48, 25 Martii 2023 (UTC)

(1) What (in all creation) was wrong with monitor, a perfectly good classical word (strictly meaning 'prompter, nomenclator, advisor'), which could easily have had its sense transferred hither, as an obvious calque from the English, especially if, as in many other wikis, an explanatory term were attached to it, as monitor computatralis or something similar? Yes, of course the suffix tor usually refers to humans (things with agency) and the suffix trum usually refers to devices (inanimate objects), but not always; see aequator. Also, the suffix tor in both senses is productive in modern languages (so why not in modern Latin?); see aerator, a device that aerates.

(2) For monitorium (the current lemma), does a random & unexplained list of terms found on the internet have much authority?

(3) For this article, the bare monitrum might be worse than monitrum computatrale, especially since the definition should distinguish this item from computer terminal, a different thing, not to mention (as disambiguated in the English wiki) in-ear monitors (earpieces), machine code monitors (programs), resident monitors (operating systems), stage monitors (loudspeakers), studio monitors (loudspeakers), system monitors (hardware or software components), virtual machine monitors (hypervisor software), and Firefox Monitors (trademarked applications).

(4) Negative evidence: no Latin term for the computer-related sense of English monitor seems to be found in Cassell's (1968) or in the third edition of Traupman (2007). IacobusAmor (disputatio) 15:18, 25 Martii 2023 (UTC)

(1) IacobusAmor dixit “Yes, of course the suffix tor usually refers to humans (things with agency) and the suffix trum usually refers to devices (inanimate objects), but not always; see aequator.”: Except that “aequator” means “coin inspector” (i.e. a person). Other meanings of “aequator” are probably medieval? I believe this is one of the cases in which Latin was truly strict: never -tor or -trix for objects. Very long ago I had read quite a bit about this topic, but I could never recall the sources after so long.

(2) I agree. I must add that by personal taste I do not like the suffix -torium for objects that “do things”. I perceive it as late or medieval, and it is nothing more than a substantivate adjective from -torius, -toria, -torium, after -trum had stopped being productive.

(3) This I think is not an issue. If the word that we choose for the English “monitor” (whatever that might be) finds its way into Latin with the same pervasivity (but I doubt) there will be ways to differentiate. But most importantly, the problem in case will arise with whatever word we choose.

(4) Yet we need a word.

--Grufo (disputatio) 14:50, 26 Martii 2023 (UTC)