The $%*! frustration thread

[Lord J Esq]

God damn it, I threw out my back.

That's what happens when you lose weight and become a twitchy skinny wreck. Post hoc, ergo propter hoc!

[FouCapitan]

Following Lord J here I'd like to state I hate it when words like "ergo" and "quid pro quo" are brought up by movie villains.  Hannibal Lector and that old fart in the Matrix shouldn't need to talk like thesauruses to appear clever.

[teaflower]

Well, things like that are basic if you know Latin. Or the creators want the character to appear intelligent. In the Lion King in 'Be Prepared', Scar says, "Of course, quid pro quo, you're expected to take certain duties aboard." He's an evil genius, thus even though he's the villain of a kid's movie and he speaks Latin!

What upsets me about the usage of Latin phrases is the misuse of them. A group of people who graduate from college are not Alumnis, they are Alumni. A man who graduates from college is not an Alumni, but an Alumnus. And a woman who graduates from college is not an Alumni, nor an Alumnus. She is an Alumna, and a group of women who graduate from college are not Alumni but instead are Alumnae.

Continuing with my rant about Alumnus and all of its appropriate forms, the mispronunciation of words like this frustrate me. Most people will say 'AH-luhm-nae', with the 'ae' being a long I sound. Ha. Alumni, going by Latin pronunciation, should be 'ah-loom-nee', given that U's are pronounced as OOH sounds, and I is more like EE, as in knee. AE is the way they spell the I sound in Latin.

[FouCapitan]

I just find bringing a dead language into conversation just to flaunt your knowledge of said language to be smug.  What does it prove?  I can study Mayan and interject short phrases of that unused language into conversation, but does using them make me more clever than the next man?

I think it was most apparent in the second Matrix movie.  Neo asks the architect who he is, and in 500 words or more he tells Neo "You're here because you're an anomally."  Six words, eight if you don't want to use contractions, saying exactly what he said.  Does taking six words and expanding them into a few hundred make you itelligent?  If you're writing an essay, sure.  If you're having a conversation, it makes you pretentious.

[Lord J Esq]

You're talking about two different things: Originally you were ranting against foreign words. Then you suddenly started talking about verbosity. Big mistake to conflate them.

Taking each in turn, I disagree with you on both counts: I disagree with you that using foreign language is inherently smug, and I disagree with you that length in communication is inherently redundant. I think you would be hard-pressed to support your claims at this level. You would find more support by ditching the erroneous absolute associations and sticking to narrower claims which exist at the situational level.

[Radical_Dreamer]

You're talking about two different things: Originally you were ranting against foreign words. Then you suddenly started talking about verbosity. Big mistake to conflate them.

Taking each in turn, I disagree with you on both counts: I disagree with you that using foreign language is inherently smug, and I disagree with you that length in communication is inherently redundant. I think you would be hard-pressed to support your claims at this level. You would find more support by ditching the erroneous absolute associations and sticking to narrower claims which exist at the situational level.

C'est vrai.

[nightmare975]

You're talking about two different things: Originally you were ranting against foreign words. Then you suddenly started talking about verbosity. Big mistake to conflate them.

Taking each in turn, I disagree with you on both counts: I disagree with you that using foreign language is inherently smug, and I disagree with you that length in communication is inherently redundant. I think you would be hard-pressed to support your claims at this level. You would find more support by ditching the erroneous absolute associations and sticking to narrower claims which exist at the situational level.

C'est vrai.

No me digas.

[FouCapitan]

You're talking about two different things: Originally you were ranting against foreign words. Then you suddenly started talking about verbosity. Big mistake to conflate them.

You missed the bigger picture of my rant.  I'm sorry your vision in the matter is clouded with your own personal views on flaunting expanded vocabulary.  Suffice to say, throwing in common Latin sayings and talking in circles using the longest words you can find in a thesaurus like some "intellectual" villains tend to do in movies makes the characters look less like super geniuses and more like douchebags in my opinion.

[teaflower]

You're talking about two different things: Originally you were ranting against foreign words. Then you suddenly started talking about verbosity. Big mistake to conflate them.

You missed the bigger picture of my rant.  I'm sorry your vision in the matter is clouded with your own personal views on flaunting expanded vocabulary.  Suffice to say, throwing in common Latin sayings and talking in circles using the longest words you can find in a thesaurus like some "intellectual" villains tend to do in movies makes the characters look less like super geniuses and more like douchebags in my opinion.

They do that to make you hate them more. 

My mom wants me to get her shit off of this computer with these three jumpdrives, right? Two problems with that. One, her shit is ICKY. It's just... gross. I don't want to dig through that. Two, the jumpdrives aren't being read by the computer. I can't find a different one, so it'll have to wait. And if she's not happy about it...

... screw her.

[Zephira]

Current frustration: Mom's going to the Rock Girl Gala in Seattle and I don't get to go. Age limits suck.

Is she trying to transfer her icky shit to another computer, or just store it on flash drives? If you're transferring it, you can put it all in a passworded RAR or ZIP file and use yousendit.com or megaupload.com to email it to her.

[teaflower]

My mom doesn't get stuff like that. I'm trying to transfer her documents, pictures (the ick part of the operation), maybe programs... I dunno.

But whatever. I'll figure it out.

[Lord J Esq]

You missed the bigger picture of my rant.  I'm sorry your vision in the matter is clouded with your own personal views on flaunting expanded vocabulary.  Suffice to say, throwing in common Latin sayings and talking in circles using the longest words you can find in a thesaurus like some "intellectual" villains tend to do in movies makes the characters look less like super geniuses and more like douchebags in my opinion.

Feisty, aren't we? "Post hoc, ergo propter hoc" is the title of a logical fallacy. In English, that's "After this, therefore before of this." But people rarely refer to it in English; this phrase is a very foolish instance on which to press your argument. If you're going to take the Bill O'Reilly route and insist that even common expressions which are by convention given in a foreign language should be spoken in English (lest one become a dreaded "elitist"), then you're going to find yourself with a full-time citizen's crusade on your hands, as you attempt to undo the injustices of "douchebaggery" in law, music, art, philosophy, food, and plenty else. It's good you'll have your hands full with your little crusade, because only that would be sufficient to distract you from the highly inconvenient fact that the assimilation of foreign terms has been the major engine of growth in this language, and that any policy against foreign terms is both hypocritical and narrow-minded.

You could have made a perfectly legitimate point by narrowing your claim: Some people do indeed come off as pretentious by using foreign vocabulary when suitable English alternatives exist and there is no convention or context to provide an excuse. Unfortunately, this course of action did not occur to you. Well, here I am to help you out. Fas est et ab hoste doceri.

[Daniel Krispin]

You missed the bigger picture of my rant.  I'm sorry your vision in the matter is clouded with your own personal views on flaunting expanded vocabulary.  Suffice to say, throwing in common Latin sayings and talking in circles using the longest words you can find in a thesaurus like some "intellectual" villains tend to do in movies makes the characters look less like super geniuses and more like douchebags in my opinion.

Feisty, aren't we? "Post hoc, ergo propter hoc" is the title of a logical fallacy. In English, that's "After this, therefore before of this." But people rarely refer to it in English; this phrase is a very foolish instance on which to press your argument. If you're going to take the Bill O'Reilly route and insist that even common expressions which are by convention given in a foreign language should be spoken in English (lest one become a dreaded "elitist"), then you're going to find yourself with a full-time citizen's crusade on your hands, as you attempt to undo the injustices of "douchebaggery" in law, music, art, philosophy, food, and plenty else. It's good you'll have your hands full with your little crusade, because only that would be sufficient to distract you from the highly inconvenient fact that the assimilation of foreign terms has been the major engine of growth in this language, and that any policy against foreign terms is both hypocritical and narrow-minded.

You could have made a perfectly legitimate point by narrowing your claim: Some people do indeed come off as pretentious by using foreign vocabulary when suitable English alternatives exist and there is no convention or context to provide an excuse. Unfortunately, this course of action did not occur to you. Well, here I am to help you out. Fas est et ab hoste doceri.

By the way, not to nitpick, but I think you meant 'because' not 'before' when explaining propter. A little slip, I think you're mind right away went 'after/before.'

I'd think, honestly, that if someone knows what the term means, says it in the proper context, it's perfectly admissable. This is most especially the case with terms that have either fallen into general use, or being used in a technical sense, as Lord J was doing.

Oh, and teaflower, yeah, the whole thing with people misusing the ending on alumni (just as with formulae, etc.) does bug me. Though, to be fair to them, their pronuncation is somewhat correct, they're just using later Medieval Latin, and not the Classical you're used to. All the same, I don't see why it has to be done in many cases.

In reply to Lord J...
veritas est et a scelerato dici.

[Lord J Esq]

Quite right. My mistake on the "before."

I must confess that I'm a fraud with Latin. I don't actually know Latin. What I do have is a handy reference source of Latin sayings and terms that I've used for a decade, and a generic understanding of Romantic vocabulary terms stemming from my Spanish instruction and my interest in etymology generally. So! Without knowing what you actually wrote, I'll try and translate it and you'll have to tell me if I'm right or wrong.

Actually, most of it is easy; I recognize all the root words except "scelerato." So, literally, you're saying something like "The truth is a ____ saying." The only thing that comes to mind for "scelerato" is the Irish word sceal, meaning "story," and, juxtaposed with "veritas" as it is, conceivably indicating a fiction or a wrongness. If that's right, then I imagine you're making a point to the effect of "The truth (as told to you by an enemy) may still be true, but it is not necessarily helpful."

Am I on the right track?

[Boo the Gentleman Caller]

I just drank an "Incredible Hulk".

Whoa.