Re: OT: Roman Calendar (was Re: USAGE: syllables)
| From: | Christophe Grandsire <christophe.grandsire@...> |
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| Date: | Saturday, June 14, 2003, 18:14 |
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En réponse à Mark J. Reed :
>Uhm, how sure are you about that?
Well, let me see:
- my Latin grammar agrees with me.
- my Latin dictionary agrees with me.
- my notes agree with me.
- the notes of my father who had Latin lessons 40 years ago agree with me.
- all mentions I've ever seen of "Quintilis" write it this way.
- There's no sensible explanation why everyone would have been taught for
at least 40 years that "Quintilis" was written that way in Classical Latin
if it was not so.
>There is no doubt that it comes from the same root as Classical Latin
>"quintus". That does not rule out the name "Quinctus".
What name *"Quinctus"? The only name that comes close to it is "Quintus",
written without a c.
Well, one source is not gonna be enough to fight the at least four
independent sources I have, and the fact that there's just no reason why we
would have been taught something wrong for so long. I am 100% sure that in
the Classical Latin of the time of Cicero, which is was people are usually
taught, the month was "Quintilis" and nothing else.
>And while I am away from my books at the moment, I'm pretty sure that both the
>_Oxford_Companion_to_the_Year_ and _Calendrical_Calculations_ also give it
>as "Quinctilis".
I still have more sources saying something else, and as you said there are
more Internet sources giving "Quintilis" than "Quinctilis" (Google finds
2070 hits for "Quintilis" for only 328 for "Quinctilis"). Now quantity is
not quality, but just explain me why would so many people be wrong and so
few right about what is just a matter of *orthography*! And it's not as if
"Quintilis" was a new phenomenon. As I said, that is what my *father* was
taught, 40 years ago.
Christophe Grandsire.
http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr
You need a straight mind to invent a twisted conlang.
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