At 4:40 pm +0200 10/5/01, Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>En réponse à Oskar Gudlaugsson <hr_oskar@...>:
>
>>
>> I'd really like to know why the "ex before consonant > e" rule works so
>> sporadically...
[snip]
>
>Well, this is a strange thing: I've studied Classical Latin for about 6 years,
>and I never saw such a rule.
Mainly because such a rule didn't exist :)
>All texts I've studied (all Classical Latin texts,
>the preferred author in France being Cicero) have _ex_ in all cases. I don't
>know if they have been rewritten,
Probably not - I suspect you're reading what Cicero wrote; he definitely
had a preference for _ex_.
>but this rule I really never saw. That's
>strange: could the Classical Latin taught in different countries be different?
Strangely - that is not improbable.
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At 2:37 pm -0400 10/5/01, Nik Taylor wrote:
[snip]
>
>Well, the most famous example of that rule is on American money, "E
>pluribus unum", "From many, one"
Except, of course, there was no rule.
I don't think post-Columbian American coinage can be cited as evidence of a
Classical Latin 'rule' ;)
Ray.
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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
[J.G. Hamann 1760]
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