Disputatio:Ruinae

grammar

Pantocrator, let's take a look at why someone thought this wasn't the best Latin:

Ruina est aedificium per tempore vel fortuna casum, ab celso ad perditum. Causae ruinae habitur etiam bellum et calamitatibus naturales.

To start with, ruina basically means 'a falling down, a collapse, a destruction (especially of a building)'. As is often the case, and a special temptation to beginners, modern languages know the word through a subsidiary or transferred sense, 'something that has fallen down'—for which native speakers (according to Cassell's) preferred the plural: ruinae. It's not impossible that, for the concept desired here, native speakers would have used a different word altogether, like parietinae. In short: just because the English word ruin looks a lot like the Latin word ruina doesn't mean that ruina is the best word in Latin contexts. You see the same problem with curiositas below: since the English word 'curiosity' is obviously derived from it, it has to mean 'curiosity', right? Well, no! There's a similar problem with the prefix re- in re-erectae below. IacobusAmor 11:02, 23 Martii 2010 (UTC)

per takes accusative. better is accusative of time without a preposition.

celsus more means lofty and high than erect.

causae are plural so they would want a plural verb.

habitur is not a plural verb. nor is it a verb in the Latin language, as habeo is 2nd declension, not third.

calamitatibus is in ablative or dative (for some reason) but its adjective naturales is in accusative or nominative (for some other reason?).

Etiam, as a conjunction, should be joining something from a previous sentence, or as an adverb/particle, should imply its still going on. It seems to be doing neither? Maybe saepe?

Ruinae famosae est super omnia mundi distributae, sicut in Roma et alia antiqua, et illae magna momenta habeunt pro scientia.

Ruinae plural, est singular.

Super omnia mundi means over everything in the world because omnia is neuter plural, mundi ostensibly genitive singular. Per totum orbem might be better.

Alia antiqua what? These are two adjectives, neuter plural. But if they follow the preposition in they need to be in ablative, yeah?

Sunt magni momenti, not habeunt (which doesn't exist any more than habitur did).

pro means more on behalf of, a dative might be classier.

Recentior, potestate destructiva de bello moderno per bomba eventa est magnam ruinam oppidorum. Etsi temporare, in WW2, bombatio crebritas urbes maiores Europae reduxi in ruina.

Recentior is a masculine/feminine adjective, you want recentius.

What is a bombum eventum and what is its syntax?

And modernus, -a, -um isn't a word (or so Cicero would say), and the wanted term is recens, novus, huius aetatis. And 'warfare' is often mars. IacobusAmor 11:09, 23 Martii 2010 (UTC)

Why is the accusative magnam ruinam after a linking verb?

What is temporare?

WW2, dude? We have a page for that and everything!

Bombatio crebritas, two nominatives next two each other. Put one in genitive.

Europae better as an adjective here.

reduxi is first person singular. Did you lead the bomb events?

This time ruina follows a very different in and needs to be accusative.

Totae urbes in ruina potest, in temporibus hodiernis re-erectae erunt, in antiquitate possunt unicae relictae. Exempli caussa, Pompeii et Herculaneum sunt clare ruinata et sepulta eruptione montis ignifer Vesuvius, etiam excavationes eiusdem sunt curiositates.

Urbes pl., potest sing. IacobusAmor 11:43, 23 Martii 2010 (UTC)

Re-erectae, dude?

Things are hard to be in the future erunt and in the present hodiernis.

Now the opposite, possunt is present antiquitate past.

What is unicae doing?

Causa has one s.

Clare: Pompeii and Herculaneum were brilliantly ruined and buried.

You did very well from ruinata to montis,

Except that ruinata is (classically) a nonword, there being no verb ruinare from which the participle could come. Ruina is itself apparently an offshoot of the verb ruere. IacobusAmor 10:48, 23 Martii 2010 (UTC)

nice flowing everything in the right case, but then ignifer and Vesuvius need to be in the genitive, too.

This excavationes is probably trying to work backward from the English excavations, but Cassell's & White's agree that excavationes isn't a word. Ainsworth's has it, with the sole definition 'a making hollow'. An excavation in the intended sense may rightly be a cavus or a cavum. IacobusAmor 11:43, 23 Martii 2010 (UTC)

Eiusdem? Maybe just eorum going with Herculaneum and Pompeii?

They are inquisitivenesses? Or they are interesting?

Any questions about something that isn't clear in the grammar? Our anonymous user was way out of line last night, but he was understandably having a hard time understanding what this article is trying to say. --Ioscius ^∞ 07:29, 23 Martii 2010 (UTC)

The source of his frustration, if I'm reading his ejaculations right, is that Latin at this level reduces the value of Vicipaedia. That's the age-old conundrum: it's good for beginners to participate, but it's bad that they contribute Latin so unidiomatic. Perhaps a temporary solution is the more frequent imposition of "Latinitas|-7" on such texts. Also, on the you-can-feed-them-for-life-if-you-teach-them-to-fish principle, a few discourses such as the one you've started here might be useful, but surely you're not going to have the time to pursue these points much longer? IacobusAmor 10:48, 23 Martii 2010 (UTC)

This is an annoying problem. See also Disputatio:Potentia (physica). Usually all contributions are welcomed, but Iacobus's brave effort above shows that even bad Latinity is expected to be so "good" that one understands what to correct. Could we expect so much modesty from Pantocrator that he'd add {{tiro}} to his articles? --Neander 12:57, 23 Martii 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure how I can avoid so many silly errors. As I was trying to say on the other page, writing is no different from speaking: someone with my Latin skill would make a great many errors attempting to speak Latin, and will do the same in writing.

As for some specific grammatical points of yours:

Ab celso ad perditum was meant to be slightly poetic, hence the use of celsus.

I don't understand why I should use esse with momenti: 'are great moments?'

It can't be that because momenti isn't a masculine plural. It's 'are OF great moment'. Julius Caesar wrote (esse) magni momenti et ponderis '(to be) of great moment and weight'. IacobusAmor 02:17, 24 Martii 2010 (UTC)

Eventa is a participle and magnam ruinam is its object.

Temporare was supposed to mean 'temporarily'.

That's ad tempus and in tempus. IacobusAmor 02:17, 24 Martii 2010 (UTC)

hodiernus .. erunt is correct, I think: 'in our times will be rebuilt'.

The will be part of a verb is usually a suffix, not a form of esse. IacobusAmor 02:17, 24 Martii 2010 (UTC)

I admit re-erectus seems horrible, but I didn't know any better; should it be restauratus?

Yes, restaurare can mean 'to restore, to rebuild'; but Cassell's suggests you use a form of restituere, or reficere, or iterum + aedificare (or any of several other verbs). Is there a chance you can buy an English-Latin dictionary? IacobusAmor 02:17, 24 Martii 2010 (UTC)

Sunt curiositas was my attempt to say 'are interesting'. I'm not sure what the best Latin word for 'interesting' in that (or any) context is, but someone that does know ought to correct it, and I would know for the future. Pantocrator 01:57, 24 Martii 2010 (UTC)

In many contexts, are interesting (in English) is going to be deleted by many copyeditors; here, it looks like a sign of a POV. For interesting, Cassell's says "render by phrase," and gives the example of 'an interesting book' = liber qui tenere legentem potest. ¶ You've made some good changes in the text, but it would help for you to get a grammar and a dictionary. IacobusAmor 02:17, 24 Martii 2010 (UTC)

For "interesting", my dictionary gives circumlocutions gratus, dulcis, iucundus, suavis, and ad delectandum/alliciendum (lectorem/auditorem). --Gabriel Svoboda 08:09, 24 Martii 2010 (UTC)

I tried to put the sentences I found on this page to a style more proper to (ancient) Latin, keeping as much as possible of their original meanings and their content. (Corydon (disputatio) 10:18, 18 Iunii 2012 (UTC))

Ruinae?

Nonne iure meliore huic paginae ruinae superscribendum sit? --Bavarese (disputatio) 09:37, 29 Augusti 2016 (UTC)

Sic, in Latinitate classica sensum hodienum numerus pluralis habet. Demetrius Talpa (disputatio) 18:35, 31 Decembris 2023 (UTC)

Paginam movi. --Grufo (disputatio) 21:06, 31 Decembris 2023 (UTC)