Why are sales of the boxes (containers) so slow (poor, disappointing, low)?

[Bbabbaloo]

Assume there's no Latin word for cookie.

Thank you very much!

 

[Lysandra]

Not sure exactly what you mean here. Are you trying to translate the line in the thread title? There is a Latin word for "cookie"--it's "crustulum".

 

[Pacifica]

A possibility might be:

Cur tam paucae pyxides veneunt? (Literally "Why are so few boxes selling?")

 

[Bbabbaloo]

Thanks Pacifica and Lysandra. And since there is surprisingly a word for cookie (!), I'd want to insert that: and ask "Why are so few cookie boxes selling?"

 

[Lysandra]

Thanks Pacifica and Lysandra. And since there is surprisingly a word for cookie (!), I'd want to insert that: and ask "Why are so few cookie boxes selling?"

Perhaps this: Cur tam paucae pyxides crustulorum ueneunt?
"Crustulum" literally means "a little cake or pastry", but I've heard it in the sense of "cookie" as well.

 

[Pacifica]

Of course the Romans had no cookies as we know them, but since a cookie is a sort of little cake or pastry, we can use that word even if it isn't so specific.

 

[Aurifex]

but since a cookie is a sort of little cake or pastry

Is it? I thought it was just a biscuit.

 

[Pacifica]

Is it? I thought it was just a biscuit.

Well, yes. But aren't biscuits pastries, kind of? When you consider the ingredients, it's similar. In any case, I guess pastries were the closest things Romans had to biscuits.

 

[Aurifex]

Well, yes. But aren't biscuits pastries, kind of?

No, sorry not to have a better answer, but a biscuit is a biscuit and, afaik, "cookie" means to an American what "biscuit" does to a Brit.

 

[Iáson]

Is there a word closer to 'biscuit'? Smith's dictionary has buccellátum, but that apparently has a very specific connotation (a hard biscuit used as soldiers' rations). An adjectival form is apparently used in the Medecina Plinii but I can't find the text on the internet.

 

[Bbabbaloo]

Wow, interesting discussion! I'm almost done with my website "San Diego Data Queen", and after I go live, I'll send the link so you all can see how I used the Latin. How would one translate "Data Queen"?

 

[Lysandra]

Wow, interesting discussion! I'm almost done with my website "San Diego Data Queen", and after I go live, I'll send the link so you all can see how I used the Latin. How would one translate "Data Queen"?

Perhaps regina datorum.

 

[Bbabbaloo]

nThanks. So if I wanted to say "San Diego Data Queen does the hard part so you don't have to", would it be "San Diego Regina Datorum opera ardua facimus ne vobis necesse sit." Thanks again!​

 

[Lysandra]

Almost correct, except "facimus" would have to be "facit".

 

[Pacifica]

And the Latin form of San Diego would be Sancti Didaci.

Of course this use of datorum in the sense of "data" is Neo-Latin rather than classical.

 

[Lysandra]

Of course this use of datorum in the sense of "data" is Neo-Latin rather than classical.

How else would you translate data then?

 

[Pacifica]

There is no word for it in classical Latin. One would have to use some phrase.

 

[Lysandra]

Of course the Romans had no cookies as we know them, but since a cookie is a sort of little cake or pastry, we can use that word even if it isn't so specific.

Is there a word closer to 'biscuit'? Smith's dictionary has buccellátum, but that apparently has a very specific connotation (a hard biscuit used as soldiers' rations). An adjectival form is apparently used in the Medecina Plinii but I can't find the text on the internet.

By the way, if anyone is interested, here are some reconstructed recipes of what the traditional crustulum and bucellatum might have looked like. My Latin teacher last semester always liked to show us recipes whenever we came across a type of Roman food in our reading.

http://pass-the-garum.blogspot.com.au/2014/10/bucellatum-roman-army-hardtack.html
http://zeitgeist.exarc.net/manuals/cooking-crustulum-and-dulcia-domestica-roman

 

[Bbabbaloo]

It's sunny here today in Sancti Didaci! Instead of data, one could substitute information. That's probably not neo-Latin.

 

[Lysandra]

It's sunny here today in Sancti Didaci! Instead of data, one could substitute information. That's probably not neo-Latin.

I don't think information is really any easier to translate. Between the two dictionaries I've looked at, there's about seven translations for it and none are ideal. Anyway, there's nothing wrong with using Neo-Latin.