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pete gee's avatar

Excellent stuffe, as ever.

gordianus's avatar

Indeed: I would (if I may æmulate the pastiche) obtestate the author to perrect composing such oblectant commentarioles.

(From "pergō" (to continue, keep doing) with hypothetical English form on the model of "direct"; "oblectō" (to entertain, interest, amuse); "commentāriolum" (a short treatise or commentary, hence a short article like this).)

Alan's avatar

Reading this was fatigating.

Holly A.J.'s avatar

The use of the long ſ within words and s only used at the end of a word is like the two different forms of the Greek sigma: σ within a word and ς at the end of a word.

Kathlyn's avatar

That was fun, though I disagree with good Sir Thomas. I haven’t fancied reading Virgil since GCSE Latin!

gordianus's avatar

Notable that of the three words you single out, "obtestate" is entirely gone, "annihilate" is now in regular (though not exactly common) use, & "fatigate" has been replaced by the shorter form "fatigue".

Also, your hypothetical writer (or, perhaps, whoever they're complaining about) evidently does not understand the phonology of Latin, if they write "annihilate" as "adnichilate", thereby preserving both the ancient Roman (but, AFAIK, entirely un-English) convention of often writing "ad-" even when the "d" was assimilated to the following consonant, & the medieval confusion or merger of "h" & "ch". Nor can they be excused by general ignorance in 1553, since (IIUC; I'm not very familiar with Renaissance linguistics) the reconstruction of classical Latin pronunciation was established at the latest by Erasmus in 1528.

goatsRstillgruffy's avatar

I thoroughly enjoyed this article!