for every decision, there is a price

A

Anonymous

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Trying to get a phrase translated to latin.

any help is greatly appreciated.


for every decision, there is a price


again any help with the above translation is greatly appreciated

Dave :applause:
 

Cicero

New Member

"For every decision, there is a price" -> Nam omnis sententia, est pretium.

Nam -> For
omnis - Every (feminine to match decision)
sentitia -> decision (feminine)

est - there is (I got this from my dictionary)
pretium - price (predicate nominative neuter)

Hope this helps!

-- Cicero
 

Cato

Consularis

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Not bad Cicero; my only quibble is with the "for" here, and I think it deserves more analysis.

Nam, a word that starts many Latin sentences, is often translated as "for"; it is a word used to weakly link one sentence to another, and as such is a weak form of "because" or "since".

I don't think that's what's intended in a phrase like "For every decision, there is a price." The quote is trying to say that every decision has a price associated with it, so one way to translate would be Omnis sententia pretium habet - "Every decision has a price".

However that sneaks around the problem of what to do with "for", and I don't believe we need to be that sneaky. For a more direct translation, I think the "for" is best included by putting omnis sententia in the dative: Omni sententiae est pretium.[/i]
 

Iynx

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I'm going to respectfully disagree with Cicero here. Nam (in my opinion) corresponds to the English conjunction "for", not to the preposition. (As in "for he's a jolly good fellow", not in "for all the tea in China".

What OP's sentence means (again, in my opinion) is that there is a cost pertaining to every decision, or that every decision has its cost. We might say pro sententia (I take sentitia as a typo for sententia?), but I think the idea might be better expressed in Latin by simply putting "decision" into the dative.

Sententia for "decision" is certainly defensible. But it is such a broad word that I think we would do better with something like arbitrium or (my choice) decretum.

There is also (as I see it) a problem with pretium here. The difficulty is that while this can mean "price" it can also mean "value". What is wanted here (I think) is a purely negative, a purely red-ink term. I would use impensa.

That would bring us to something like

Omni decreto impensa est.

While this too is defensible, it seems to me better either to put omne decretum in the plural or to use quisque

Omnibus decretis impensa est.

or

Cuisque decreto impensa est.

Having said so much, I am now going to propose another approach entirely. Like many an old-time preacher, I will urge a return to the scriptures. What would Jerome do?

In the third chapter of Ecclesiastes we have the famous "To every thing there is a season...". In the Vulgate this is rendered as omnia tempus habent... On this model we might have

Omnia decreta impensam habent.

That would be my answer to the original poster.

Inasmuch as there are important differences in the two answers so far, I do hope that others will jump in here, and help achieve a consensus.
 

Iynx

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I see that Cato posted his response as I was typing mine. I think it interesting to note that while we both mention a dative-pretium-est
construction and an omnis-pretium-habet construction I go with the latter, and Cato with the former.

I wonder whether Cato, or anyone else, would care to weigh in on decretum versus sententia, and impensa versus pretium?
 
A

Anonymous

Guest

Original Poster of this question here.

WOW, didn't realizez there were so many variations it could be. should have know, what with all the shades of meaning in english.....


For every decision
meaning in my mind, Every Decision that a person ever makes

there is a price
again in my mind, this reflects the price to be payed for the decisions, usually reflected in the negative light.

Maybe this will help with the shading of the translation.

Dave[/b]
 

Cato

Consularis

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Iynx dixit:
I wonder whether Cato, or anyone else, would care to weigh in on decretum versus sententia, and impensa versus pretium?
I agree impensa (feminine, I presume, because of the implied pecunia) is a better choice than pretium; while the latter does mean "price", it also means "reward", and so could lead to confusion. The former, however, is always used to mean "cost" in a negative sense. It is rare, but thanks to its more common cognate impendo, the meaning should be easy enough for anyone to deduce.

I'm split on sententia vs. decretum. The problem is that, while decretum more clearly means "decision" (sententia is broader; it can mean "opinion, judgement, purpose, etc."), it is much more commonly used to specifically describe judicial or government decisions (cf. English cognate "decree"). I personally prefer the broadness of sententia, as I think the OP is referring to each and every decision a person makes, not just specific judgments or resolutions. But this is a matter of opinion.

So, to summarize for the OP, we have:

Omnia decreta impensam habent (Iynx preferred)

I'd support this with the change to sententiae:

Omnes sententiae impensam habent (BTW I like the plural)

but would personally prefer the dative construction (this is where my interest in classical Latin and Iynx's fondness for Jerome lead us, I think, to different conclusions):

Omnibus sententiis est impensa (Cato preferred).

If you're not confused by now, we haven't done our job. :lol:
 

Cicero

New Member

Aye I am rusty indeed, thank you for the corrections. I'm glad someone else is here to clean up my messes!

Nam was just the automatic answer in my mind when it came to 'For,' Dative completely just left the scene in my mind. Ah well, I'll get back in the rhythm eventually.

I find the confusion surrounding pretium fascinating, I did not know the other definitions since I work from the dictionary and I didn't do the reverse lookup (though I will in the future.) I just boggle to consider a culture with a word that means both cost and reward.

From the discussions, I lean towards Cato's preferred translation using the Dative and the plurals.

-- Cicero
 
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