Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

Omphalos wrote:That should be your rapper name. Ol' Nasty Bastard. "ONB."

I wish I knew enough about rap to do one now. Oh well.

incognito < Lat. incognitus/-a/-um < in- "not" + cognitus, past participle of cognoscere "know" ... therefore meaning "unknown". The form with the final -o, that we use in English, is either masculine or neuter Dative or Ablative, so I figure it's part of a longer phrase, but I can't find any indication of what that might have been at the moment.

Terra is indeed "land" (or "earth"), a feminine noun, hence the feminine adjective incognita. "Unknown Land".

Another thing most kids won't learn or know much about: Latin!

(As I've pointed out before, since the setting of KJA's novel is not our Earth, it makes ZERO SENSE for people to be using Latin phrases. Although he'll probably come up with some bullshit about "translating the archaic language of that world into an equivalent one in ours." Nice, except most people today don't understand enough Latin for that to make sense. )

Interesting. I did French and Spanish at GCSE level (and have forgotten most of it) but I always thought Latin would have been more interesting to learn, mostly because of words in English like incognito. (And I think it sounds good).

I had a feeling Terra was feminine and hence the 'a' on incognita. Is it known how masculine and feminine words came about, or is that an arbitrary designation, kind of like positive and negative or north and south?

SadisticCynic wrote:Is it known how masculine and feminine words came about, or is that an arbitrary designation, kind of like positive and negative or north and south?

It's not really known. English has ended up developing natural gender, where only animate/living things can be masculine or feminine (except in a few exceptional cases like ships and cars ("She's a beaut, ain't she?")) and everything else is neuter (exception: ugly babies ("It's a boy ... we think." ), but most other European languages have grammatical gender, with many words classified based on their form or some other now obscure criteria. Old English was that way, and German still is. Other languages have cut back on the number of genders. French, for example, now has only two genders, so all the Latin neuters had to be reclassified as either masc. or fem. Swedish (and I assume Norwegian and Danish are the same ... Lundse?) kept its neuter and regrouped the masc. & fem into a "common" gender.

Fun stuff. To me at least.

SadisticCynic wrote:Interesting. I did French and Spanish at GCSE level (and have forgotten most of it) but I always thought Latin would have been more interesting to learn, mostly because of words in English like incognito. (And I think it sounds good).

I did GCSE Latin . It was definitely more fun than french - where the emphasis was more on the mundane practical side (je faire la vaisselle). Latin by the fact it is a dead language was more on the technical side of things (nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative etc) - which you just don't get anywhere else (or I didn't at least).

Fun stuff. Got a shit mark though

DuneFishUK wrote:

SadisticCynic wrote:Interesting. I did French and Spanish at GCSE level (and have forgotten most of it) but I always thought Latin would have been more interesting to learn, mostly because of words in English like incognito. (And I think it sounds good).

I did GCSE Latin . It was definitely more fun than french - where the emphasis was more on the mundane practical side (je faire la vaisselle). Latin by the fact it is a dead language was more on the technical side of things (nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative etc) - which you just don't get anywhere else (or I didn't at least).

Fun stuff. Got a shit mark though

I have no idea what "GSCE" means, but I started Latin in the ninth grade and continued with it all through college. I loved it at first but got to hate it before I was done.

Omphalos wrote:I have no idea what "GSCE" means, but I started Latin in the ninth grade and continued with it all through college. I loved it at first but got to hate it before I was done.

Don't worry neither does the English, Irish and Welsh education system.

GCSEs are exams you sit at the age of 16. It stands for General Certificate of Secondary Education. I'm not sure what the Scottish equivalent is, probably an exam in how to scrounge off English taxes and die from a heart attack in your 40s.

chanilover wrote:I'm not sure what the Scottish equivalent is, probably an exam in how to scrounge off English taxes and die from a heart attack in your 40s.

Aye that would be it CL, a tactic inspired by the English ruling classes.

inhuien wrote:

chanilover wrote:I'm not sure what the Scottish equivalent is, probably an exam in how to scrounge off English taxes and die from a heart attack in your 40s.

Aye that would be it CL, a tactic inspired by the English ruling classes.

Trading petrochemicals for palm oil so you scots can fry your mars bars and pizza slices? Is that it?

Fried pizza? That's got to be like paradise.

SandChigger wrote:

SadisticCynic wrote:Is it known how masculine and feminine words came about, or is that an arbitrary designation, kind of like positive and negative or north and south?

It's not really known. English has ended up developing natural gender, where only animate/living things can be masculine or feminine (except in a few exceptional cases like ships and cars ("She's a beaut, ain't she?")) and everything else is neuter (exception: ugly babies ("It's a boy ... we think." ),

I thought the Russian language was like this too (the fatherland, ships as "he" and stuff like that, and maybe German too?

Omphalos wrote:

inhuien wrote:

chanilover wrote:I'm not sure what the Scottish equivalent is, probably an exam in how to scrounge off English taxes and die from a heart attack in your 40s.

Aye that would be it CL, a tactic inspired by the English ruling classes.

Trading petrochemicals for palm oil so you scots can fry your mars bars and pizza slices? Is that it?

I favour good old deef dripping, you can't beat a beefy Mars bars.

Omphalos wrote:I thought the Russian language was like this too (the fatherland, ships as "he" and stuff like that, and maybe German too?

Right, but both Russian and German have grammatical gender. Even with grammatical gender you get "correct" items, like otets "father" classed as masculine, mat' "mother" as feminine, and okno "window" as neuter. (That's where the traditional sexual labels—instead of something like Class 1, Class 2, Class 3—came from, after all.) But then you also get avtobus "bus" and chay "tea" as masculine, kul'tura "culture" and luna "the Moon" as feminine, and things like those famous neuter German Frauleins.

SandChigger wrote:...and things like those famous neuter German Frauleins.

Bringing NEUTER beer!

(das Bier )

Freakzilla wrote:

SandChigger wrote:...and things like those famous neuter German Frauleins.