Disputatio:Sarah Palin

Initial est

A learned professor once told me that initial est (especially at the start of a paragraph, one should imagine) is usually 'There is'. Ergo: Est prima Alascae gubernatrix (femina) = 'There's a foremost female governor of Alaska (a woman)'? IacobusAmor 01:45, 30 Augusti 2008 (UTC)

I agree that is true in general, but I think in this case the subject would be understood (from the context) to be Palin. So I would have translated it as "(Palin) is the first (female) governatrix of Alaska." But I wouldn't object to putting Palin in explicitly. After looking at it carefully I think feminina is better than femina as an adjective though. (words gives femina as both adjective and noun but LS lists femina only as noun and feminina as adjective)--Rafaelgarcia 02:04, 30 Augusti 2008 (UTC)

Cassell's has femineus, -a, -um, which I put in and you took out. IacobusAmor 03:51, 30 Augusti 2008 (UTC)

LS gives "femineus: of or belonging to a woman, womanly, feminine (rare but class. and mostly poet.) = muliebris"

and it gives "femininus: of the feminine gender, feminine: " I think feminina is the meaning intended.--Rafaelgarcia 04:07, 30 Augusti 2008 (UTC)

Gender is not sex. Surely to careful writers (like L&S) in the nineteenth century, the idea that a woman has a gender would have seemed preposterous. Women have sex; words have gender. IacobusAmor 13:36, 30 Augusti 2008 (UTC)

I suppose the real issue you are raising is how did the romans deal with the distinction between gender (grammatical attribute of things including humans), gender (sexually oriented role in society) and sex(biological attribute of humans). I can't answer this. All I can say is that I think that the proper english sentence would use the word gender in the "sexually-oriented role in society" sense, explained here(in the usage note:[1]. --Rafaelgarcia 15:55, 30 Augusti 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. After further thought, maybe you really are referring to gender: Palin prima Alascae gubernatrix (feminina) est 'Palin is the first female governor (feminine) of Alaska'; but the suffix -ix already marks gubernatrix as feminine, so I don't see why the text would want a redundant parenthetical indication of that fact. IacobusAmor 23:38, 30 Augusti 2008 (UTC)

New section?

I'm thinking of adding a new section about her past public service. Would somebody mind looking it over? I'm not sure of all the Latin.

Publica Vita

Palin serviebat in consilio civitate Vasillae, Alascae, ab anno 1992 usque ad annum 1996. Praefecta Vasillae ab anno 1996 usque ad annum 2002 erat. Anno 2002, candidata gubernatricis adjutricis Alascae erat, sed non designata est. Gubernator Frank Murkowski delegavit eam servire Commisaria Ethica in Commissione Alascae Petrolei anno 2003. Palin abdicavit in anno 2004.Postscript 18:41, 30 Augusti 2008 (UTC)

Go for it Postscript! No need to ask first....although it would help to provide an english version since some of the phases above like "in consilio civitate Vasillae" look mysterious to me since consilio and civitate are in opposition = "in the council the state of Vasilla". What's "commisaria Ethica"?

See also Vicipaedia:De orthographia.

As an aside I notice that invariably you tend to put the verbs in the english language position between subject and object. In latin the position is used to convey emphasis, the first and last part of the sentence being emphatic. The usual thing done is to put the subject first and the verb last, which is sort of nonemphatic overall since they are what most setences emphasize by their nature. --Rafaelgarcia 19:20, 30 Augusti 2008 (UTC)