Re: Fiat Lux

On Mon, 25 Jun 2001, claudio wrote:

>"let us dance": sure its rather "suggestive" than imperative.
Depends on who's saying it and how it's said. That's a neat
thing about English imperatives - a whole range of meaning
can be expressed with the same form.

>phrases i remind are:
>"how about a dance?" or "do you like to dance?" or "may we dance?" or
>"lets dance!".
>you see that the last expression is not a question and therefore
>psychologically attached to more self esteem.
>actually the person is offering something.
>a question is a less strong offer, since it emphases
>the acknowledgement instead of the offer/suggestion itself.
>i dare to state: a suggestion expressed as question is
>averagely not that succesful than a suggestion expressed as statement.
Perhaps. Depends too much on circumstances and context.

>alas, "let's" is viewed as low-quality mundane expression,
?? It's considered quite normal and usual here.

>so the best way to keep
>formal english without questioning is something like "i offer you to
>dance with me" even if it may sound unusual.
Then it rather becomes something _other_ than "formal" English.
Probably the 'best' formal form would be "shall we dance?" Once
again, this can be an invitation or a command. Depending.
aqqqqqqqqqqqqqqq
]'[[[[[[[[[[[[
>regards, c.s.
>
>>>> Not quite, _ua:pula:re_ (active) means: 'to be beaten, to be flogged'; and
=YTGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGJKIIIIIIIIIIIII














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there may be one or two others.
>>>
>>>And <irruma:re>. In the fashion of older Latin-English dictionaries, I won't
>>>actually define it here. :)
>
>JM> I was going to point that out (though even newer Latin dictionaries seem to
>JM> prefer not to define this word), as well as venere "to be sold." It's
>JM> interesting that fieri is usually given as the perfect of facere, and venere
>JM> of vendere, but I've never seen vapulare cited as the actual passive of
>JM> verberare nor irrumare as the passive of fellare... these seem to be
>JM> considered separate verbs, rather than suppletive passives. For irrumare
>JM> there are definite idiological reasons thought ;)
>JM>  Sorry if my previous post was a bit redundant with other things that
>JM> have now been said in this thread, as I tried to post it yesterday but it
>JM> bounced.
>
>JM>  Oh, and as for the other half of this thread: I think what Muke was
>JM> trying to say is that the let in "let there be light" is parallel to the let
>JM> in "let us dance," i.e. it's a helping verb for an optative used as a
>JM> subjunctive, rather than a request for permission or some such.
>
>JM> -JDM
>
>
>"rurmlor entflöt, fluppseveri trimel akre wopel larf."
>- alte redensart
>

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