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Re: Latin question: "titillandus"

From:Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>
Date:Friday, March 8, 2002, 20:07
At 8:23 am +0100 7/3/02, Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>En réponse à Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>: > >> >> >The problem is that I don't know of any Latin verb *titillare. >> >> No need for the asterisk. The verb is well enough attested in >> Classical >> Latin, being used even by Cicero himself! It means "to tickle" or "to >> amuse"; hence the English "to titillate". >> > >So the French verb "titiller" comes directly from Latin!
Yep - and not via Vulgar Latin. As you say, directly from the classical language (otherwise that second /t/ would have gone long ago /t/ >> /d/ >> /D/ >> zero, as in père << patre(m)). It is obviously just like the English 'titillate', a later, learned borrowing. The English word BTW is rarely - if ever, nowadays - used litterally of 'tickling', but - just as the Latin could be - metaphorically of something arousing or 'tickling' one's desires. Indeed, until your recent emails I had known only 'chatouiller' (to tickle) in French. It's the only word my grandsons use; I've never heard them use 'titiller'.
>Strange, I thought it >was more an argot formation...
Nope - strictly learned :)
>> >> Not only in verse - 'twas not uncommon in prose of the "Silver Latin" >> (i.e. >> post-Augustan) period. >> > >I never studied that unfortunately :(( . In class we only studied texts of the >end of the Republic or beginning of the Augustan period...
You should try Tacitus sometime - a bit hard going at first, and very different from Cicero or Livy. [snip]
>> >> But maybe your language has an equivalent phrase to: >> Let sleeping dogs lie >> Draco dormiens numquam titillandus >> Na deffro'r ci a fo'n cysgu >> >> What's the equivalent proverb in French? (There must be one, I guess). > >I wish I remembered. I'm wondering if we don't use the lion in French... :)) >Not that there are many lions in France (though, between the zoos, >reserves and >circusses, we must have a few :)) ), but that's the archetype of the wild >animal in France :) .
According to Harrap's English-French/ French-English dictionary, it's: "ne réveillez pas le chat qui dort" ...which sounds a bit feeble, unless French cats are particularly fierce ;) Ray. ========================================= A mind which thinks at its own expense will always interfere with language. [J.G. Hamann 1760] =========================================

Replies

Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...>
Raymond Brown <ray.brown@...>