Ass In Time

(Not a porn blog!)  Quick Latin translations for all your fanfic writing needs

[corrigemuslatinam]

How do you say "growing pains" in Latin? Thanks so much in advance! :)

Hey, so, this was a bit of a challenge because the literal translation of “growing pains” is not the sense that (we think) you were requesting. We assumed that you wanted a translation for the colloquial English phrase used for pains that result from the process of physical growth, not pains that are increasing in intensity. For that we’ve come up with two suggested translations:

Dolōrēs Adolēscendī- The pains of growing up  

Dolōrēs Pūbēscendī- The pains of becoming mature

Both mean “growing pains” in Latin, but we tried to convey the sense that the specific Latin verbs hold in our English explanations. We chose two verbs that mean “grow” in the sense of aging, or physical growth, to best capture the essence of the English phrase. IF we’ve misinterpreted, and you were asking about pains that are increasing in intensity, that would be translated as Dolōrēs Crēscentēs.

In addition, without knowing the context this phrase will be used in, it is impossible to decide which case (form of the words) to use. We decided to give you the nominative, the form Latin words take when they are the subject of their sentence. If that is not indeed the case and you’d like to know how to put it in other contexts, feel free to let us know.

Hope this helps! 

[corrigemuslatinam]

How do you say Even the most beautiful roses have their thorns

Hi, Anon! Our translation for your sentence is: Etiam (sē) spīnās pulcherrimae rosae tenent. The long marks over the vowels are optional, and the “sē” is optional. “Sē” is a reflexive pronoun, so in this case it emphasizes the fact that the thorns belong to the roses. Include it if you want.

For fun, Google Translate says this: Habent etiam pulcherrima rosa spinis. This is wrong because it ignores things like number and case. The subject and verb do not agree, and there is no object. Basically, this is nonsense. “Habent” does work as a verb in place of “tenent”, but we didn’t think it was the best choice as it is more figurative.

Thank you for the ask! Let us know if you have any questions.

[interretialia]

The sē in Etiam (sē) spīnās pulcherrimae rosae is wrong. It should be suās.

You need the appropriate form of the reflexive possessive adjective suus, not the reflexive pronoun sē. As it stands, the translation with sē means “Even the most beautiful roses hold themselves as thorns.

[corrigemuslatinam]

Oh dear, that’s quite right. Our apologies. We will correct the original post! Thanks for noticing this. 

[corrigemuslatinam]

How do you say Even the most beautiful roses have their thorns

Hi, Anon! Our translation for your sentence is: Etiam (suās) spīnās pulcherrimae rosae tenent. The long marks over the vowels are optional, and the “suās” is optional. “Suās” is a reflexive possessive adjective, so in this case it emphasizes the fact that the thorns belong to the roses. Include it if you want.

For fun, Google Translate says this: Habent etiam pulcherrima rosa spinis. This is wrong because it ignores things like number and case. The subject and verb do not agree, and there is no object. Basically, this is nonsense. “Habent” does work as a verb in place of “tenent”, but we didn’t think it was the best choice as it is more figurative.

Thank you for the ask! Let us know if you have any questions.

(edited)

[corrigemuslatinam]

For a religious tattoo: "By (His) blood, we are saved", or "we were saved." I think a continuous-state implication is better. Thanks in advance!

Hey there! Please be sure to read our Tattoo Disclaimer over on the FAQ, and to get a second or third opinion on this translation.                                       

The translation we’ve come up with is either, “Eius Sanguine Servāmur” or “Per Eius Sanguinem Servāmur”.  For just “We are saved”, we would simply say, “Servāmur”. Please note, the long mark over the “a” in servamur is semi-optional. It’s a pronunciation mark that most modern sources add to aid in deciphering, but macrons were not actually a part of written Classical Latin. Since it’s for a tattoo, you should probably consider whether you like it aesthetically or not.                                                                                   Google translate gives either “per sanguinem salvi facti sumus” or “In sanguine ipsius salvi erimus” depending on whether you include the comma or not. The first one kind of works, in a really clunky way, but the second one is pretty nonsensical.

 Good luck with your tattoo!

[corrigemuslatinam]

How would you translate "Death's Beloved" into Latin??

Hey Anon! Thanks for the ask! There are a few different ways to say ‘death’, and a few different ways to say ‘beloved’, and depending on the situation, one might work better than another. We’ve come up with a few different options:

Carus Thanatī: This means something like “the darling of Thanatos”. Thanatos is the Greek deity that represents personified death. Carus Mortis or Carus Letī would work too. This is probably the lightest/fluffiest option.

Amator Mortis: This means “lover of death”. It brings to mind a more two-way relationship, where the “beloved” is a more active participant. The “death” part of this carries a more general, neutral meaning, too.

Amatus Letō: This means “loved by death”. This option has the most extreme sense, in our opinion, and carries a sense of a relationship where all of the emotions and agency come from death, and the beloved is passive. This “death” is also the most violent of the three words we’ve chosen, and it even carries with it a secondary meaning of ‘destruction’.

There are more combinations than just these three, too. Also, if either death or the beloved has a specific gender, that should be taken into account; we’ve assumed that the beloved is masculine, but if they’re feminine or if they do not have gender, then the form needs to be changed to reflect that. As far as death’s gender goes, “Thanatos” is inherently masculine, “Mors” is inherently feminine, and “Letus” is inherently neuter. So again, the best fit depends on who and what this is applying too. If none of these seem to fit and/or you don’t feel comfortable tweaking them yourself, feel free to send another ask!

As a quick side note, we checked to see what Google Translate’s translation of your phrase was, and got “Mors dilecto”, which makes the death the subject of the phrase, rather than the beloved. “Dilectus” does mean beloved, and has more of a sense of “chosen” or “prized”; it is a valid translation, we just didn’t want to present too many options.

[interretialia]

Be careful! There are some problems with those three suggestions.

Carus Thanati: “Thanatos’ beloved/dear one.” The problem here is the Thanati. The name does not appear in Classical Latin and, if it had been used, it would be poetic and in reference to the mythological entity. Since Latin has a good word for “death,” we might as well just write Carus Mortis.

Amator Mortis: “Lover of death,” where the Mortis is an objective genitive (is qui mortem amat) or a possessive genitive (is qui amat et morti est). The problem here is that this phrase reverses the direction of affection. “Beloved” in English indicates the recipient of affection, but the word amator in Latin is an agent noun indicating a person who is actively doing the action in question.

Amatus Leto: This can mean several different things, and that is part of the problem with Leto. Since Letum is being used as the agent of the loving, it is not a ablative of means but an ablative of agent and so requires the preposition: a Leto. Furthermore, letum need not indicate the most extreme sense, but the real issue is that it is mostly a poetic word for “death” in Classical Latin. We might as well say Amatus a Morte.

Utinam hoc vobis prosit!

[corrigemuslatinam]

We did consider that Thanatos does not appear in Classical Latin, but since we don’t know how rigidly this anon wants to stick to “Classical Latin”, we decided to include it as an option. If they were thinking of death as more of a personified, mythological being, then it might fit. Besides, even Roman poets such as Virgil and Ovid used Greek names in many instances, so why shouldn’t we adopt them? We also did have a long discussion about how to portray the direction of the love, and we ended up deciding that we wanted to include an option where the “beloved” was also doing some loving. Although “beloved” in English does mainly refer to the recipient of affection, it is also often used in situations where affection is reciprocated, and we wanted to have a choice that reflected that. Without much context regarding how this phrase will be used, we decided to give a wide range of interpretations. The reason that we described the third option as the most “extreme” is because the Amatus, being a perfect passive participle, seems to have absolutely no agency involved on the part of the beloved. And while Letum does not necessarily have to be destructive or violent, it is the word most likely to have that sense. Again, we think it probably depends on how death is being conceptualized, and how the relationship is constituted. As far as forgetting the ‘a’.... That one is a mistake, which we’ll fix in the original post. One of the admins has been reading far too much Latin poetry for class, which can make one forget all of the little rules that get ignored for the meter. So, Mea Culpa!

[corrigemuslatinam]

Salvēte! I think what you're doing here is really cool (and I would also consider joining the blog if you need additional help)! That being said, (can you tell I'm a Latinist by that absolute construction lol) I think you guys should possibly reconsider offering translations for tattoos. I wouldn't want anyone to use one of y'all's translations for a tattoo, decide they don't like it, and then get mad at you guys. I know some other translation blogs have a "we don't do tattoos" disclaimer.

Hi, anon. Thanks for your interest! In the future we might be looking for other people to help moderate this blog, so we'll keep that in mind. As far as the tattoo thing goes, you make a good point. We appreciate you bringing that to our attention. We’ve talked it over, and we decided that if too many translation blogs refuse to translate for tattoos, then there won’t be enough readily available resources for those wanting translations. We are still going to offer to translate for tattoos, but we will be adding a disclaimer regarding it to our FAQ. Gratias tibi agimus!

[corrigemuslatinam]

How would you translate "Death's Beloved" into Latin??

Hey Anon! Thanks for the ask! There are a few different ways to say ‘death’, and a few different ways to say ‘beloved’, and depending on the situation, one might work better than another. We’ve come up with a few different options:

Carus Thanatī: This means something like “the darling of Thanatos”. Thanatos is the Greek deity that represents personified death. Carus Mortis or Carus Letī would work too. This is probably the lightest/fluffiest option.

Amator Mortis: This means “lover of death”. It brings to mind a more two-way relationship, where the “beloved” is a more active participant. The “death” part of this carries a more general, neutral meaning, too.

Amatus A Letō: This means “loved by death”. This option has the most extreme sense, in our opinion, and carries a sense of a relationship where all of the emotions and agency come from death, and the beloved is passive. This “death” is also the most violent of the three words we’ve chosen, and it even carries with it a secondary meaning of ‘destruction’.

There are more combinations than just these three, too. Also, if either death or the beloved has a specific gender, that should be taken into account; we’ve assumed that the beloved is masculine, but if they’re feminine or if they do not have gender, then the form needs to be changed to reflect that. As far as death’s gender goes, “Thanatos” is inherently masculine, “Mors” is inherently feminine, and “Letus” is inherently neuter. So again, the best fit depends on who and what this is applying too. If none of these seem to fit and/or you don’t feel comfortable tweaking them yourself, feel free to send another ask!

As a quick side note, we checked to see what Google Translate’s translation of your phrase was, and got “Mors dilecto”, which makes the death the subject of the phrase, rather than the beloved. “Dilectus” does mean beloved, and has more of a sense of “chosen” or “prized”; it is a valid translation, we just didn’t want to present too many options.

(edited)

[corrigemuslatinam]

How to Torture A Latin Student

“Oh, you study Latin? Semper Ubi Sub Ubi!”

What you (probably) think you are saying: “Always wear underwear”

What you’re actually saying: “Always where under where” 

Three adverbs and a preposition do not a complete sentence make! 

Bonus- How to actually say it: (if addressing a single Latin student:) Semper gere subligaculum OR (if addressing multiple Latin students:) Semper gerite subligacula

[corrigemuslatinam]

Salvete, Omnes!

We are two experienced Latin students who have always been irrationally offended by the incorrect usage of Latin phrases by the general populace. After seeing many, many unfortunate mistakes (some more permanent than others), we have decided to do something we’ve been talking about for a while and make a blog where people can ask for Latin translations of simple English words and phrases. We realize that not everyone has the time, motivation, or opportunity to bother to learn a dead language, but we’re nerds who have. We would love to encourage the use of correct Latin, whether it’s so you can sound cooler when writing Harry Potter fanfiction or you are getting a Latin tattoo. 

We are NOT here for Latin student’s homework help, and if we feel like you’re asking for a Latin class, we will not respond. 

Please do not make the same mistakes of certain songwriters, authors, and even architects who did not have the wisdom to seek out someone who had studied Latin before setting something in stone (literally and figuratively), and send us an ask! 

Valete!