Send CathInfo's owner Matthew a gift from his Amazon wish list:
https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/25M2B8RERL1UO

Author Topic: "Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre" - correct Latin?  (Read 245 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline SimpleMan

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 4384
  • Reputation: +1629/-194
  • Gender: Male
"Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre" - correct Latin?
« on: August 02, 2021, 07:27:43 AM »
  • Thanks!0
  • No Thanks!0
  • I was looking at the Angelus Press website --- my son told me yesterday that he "wanted to buy me" a Catholic book, may be trying to "get on my good side", may be coming to a more mature understanding of the Faith, may be mourning his beloved grandpa, I don't know --- and saw this title, which I've never read, but have heard of many times.

    Is that proper Latin?  More to the point --- and, despite four decades of attachment to the TLM, I have never formally studied Latin in a classroom setting (sheer slackery on my part, misspent youth, but in my defense, I tried to take it one semester, and it wasn't offered or something, that's been almost 40 years ago) --- and I'm going to betray a lot of ignorance here, isn't that inserting nominative case where you need another case instead?  Shouldn't "Marcel Lefebvre" have some kind of case ending or something?

    I knew Michael Davies personally, and regarded him as a friend.  (Incidentally, if you never met him in person, never sat down and shot the breeze with him, the guy was something else!  Wicked sense of humor.  Real piece of work!)  It's not my intention to hold Michael up to any kind of ridicule or disrespect, it's just that this title has always bugged me, "that doesn't sound right". 

    So what would the "proper" Latin be?

    Incidentally, I think I'm going to get Prometheus instead.  We're on kind of a budget and I can't afford APML right now.


    Offline SimpleMan

    • Hero Member
    • *****
    • Posts: 4384
    • Reputation: +1629/-194
    • Gender: Male
    Re: "Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre" - correct Latin?
    « Reply #1 on: August 15, 2021, 04:07:26 PM »
  • Thanks!0
  • No Thanks!0
  • Bump.


    Offline Ladislaus

    • Supporter
    • *****
    • Posts: 41908
    • Reputation: +23946/-4345
    • Gender: Male
    Re: "Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre" - correct Latin?
    « Reply #2 on: August 15, 2021, 05:07:20 PM »
  • Thanks!0
  • No Thanks!0
  • Normally the "ablative" case ending should follow the preposition "pro", but with foreign words Latin often didn't add the declensions, realizing that it would be like a "Frankenstein" cobbling together of two languages.  Had they Latinized Archbishop Lefebvre's name, then yet it should have the ablative case ending.

    Offline SimpleMan

    • Hero Member
    • *****
    • Posts: 4384
    • Reputation: +1629/-194
    • Gender: Male
    Re: "Apologia Pro Marcel Lefebvre" - correct Latin?
    « Reply #3 on: August 16, 2021, 12:16:15 AM »
  • Thanks!0
  • No Thanks!0
  • Normally the "ablative" case ending should follow the preposition "pro", but with foreign words Latin often didn't add the declensions, realizing that it would be like a "Frankenstein" cobbling together of two languages.  Had they Latinized Archbishop Lefebvre's name, then yet it should have the ablative case ending.
    And that would be?  "Marcela Lefebvra"?  "Marcelo Lefebvro"?  Something else? 

    Stop me before I make an utter ass of myself.

    I had thought that ML's name was left intact for purposes of clarity and to keep the uninformed from thinking his name was "Marcela Lefebvra" or some such.  IOW, MD played fast and loose with Latin, to write a book whose title would be more approachable.  But it still looks weird.

    Polish, which also has case endings, does something similar with, for instance, the names of American states and presidents.  It's kind of random sometimes.  For instance, something is "w Kentucky" ("in Kentucky"), but "na Florydzie" (literally, "on Florida", peninsulas are treated, for grammatical purposes, as though they are detached islands, your fun fact for today).  When applied to names, the result can be unintentionally comical to an English-speaker who doesn't understand how Polish works, e.g., "Billowi Clintonowi" or "George'a Busha", depending on where it falls in the sentence.  (Nominative case, i.e., subject case, is simply "Bill Clinton" and "George Bush", they typically wouldn't calque it to, for instance, "Jerzy Bush".)

    After you've studied Polish case endings for awhile, you just need two or three fingers of Knob Creek with ice and branch.  Numbs down the pain.

    And let's not even get started on how Serbian, when using the Latin alphabet, spells English proper names phonetically --- "Sairus Venc" or "Medlin Olbrajt" for two of our Secretaries of State, spelled just the way it sounds to a Serbian-speaker.  Lithuanian does something similar, though to their ears, all proper male names have to end in "s", hence "Barackas Obamas" and "Donaldas Trampas".  (Incidentally, Serbian spells DJT's last name as "Tramp".  Another fun fact for today.)