(Untitled)

[wwidsith]

The usual word for and in Latin was et, of course, which is what has survived into the daughter languages. But one of my favourite features of Latin is their alternative word for and, the -que which was tacked on to other words. It features most famously, perhaps, in The Aeneid's opening line:

Arma virumque cano
Which needs a full eight seven! words

Comments

[herself_nyc]

He said 'clit' Hehhehheh.

[wwidsith]

AND "copulative"!

hahaha, if we do get to meet up, I think you and Hannah will get on very well!

[herself_nyc]

I hope we do, I'd like that very much.
My email is nk_herself at yahoo dot com.

[muckefuck]

Which needs a full eight words in English: "Of arms and the the man I sing"....How elegant is that!

Pretty elegant indeed, but not, I don't think, because of -que but because of the more inflectional nature of Latin generally. The "savings" is almost entirely because arma, virum, and cano each stand for two or three English words a piece. Moreover, and is often a clitic in English, it just isn't written that way except in exceptional circumstances. (E.g. Jeff Foxworthy's humourous neologism, momonyms "my mother and her peer group".)

I had no idea -que had a cognate in Germanic. I wish I could think of other examples, but nothing comes to mind.

[wwidsith]

Dammit! I thought you'd have summat for me there.

Also, if you hadn't pasted that line, I probably wouldn't have noticed that I typed "the" twice, and it's actually only 7 words in English, and I am a moron.

[muckefuck]

I thought about alerting you with a "[sic]", but I figured you'd spot the error without it and I was right.

Don't give up on me yet; I haven't quite exhausted my etymological resources.