Pajamas

Nikolaos

schmikolaos

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How would you render this? All that I can come up with is "vestimenta dormienda", and having no experience whatsoever with gerundives I can't be sure that it's correct.

Also, how would you do the diminutive (*cough* jammies)? "Vestimentula dormienda"?
 

Iohannes Aurum

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Synthesis dormitoria (substantive plural) is the translation according to John Traupman.
 
B

Bitmap

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Nikolaos dixit:
How would you render this? All that I can come up with is "vestimenta dormienda", and having no experience whatsoever with gerundives I can't be sure that it's correct.
if you want to use an nd-form, it should be a gerund genitive: vestimenta dormiendi
Also possible is vestis/vestimenta nocturna ... the diminutive of vestimenta would indeed be vestimentula ... I don't think this word is found anywhere, though.
 

Nikolaos

schmikolaos

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Location:
Matsumoto, Nagano, Japan
Iohannes Aurum dixit:
Synthesis dormitoria (substantive plural) is the translation according to John Traupman.
I saw that, but it seemed strange to me... of course, vestimenta dormiendi is also a bit forced, but I only found one hit for synthesis on Perseus.

Bitmap dixit:
if you want to use an nd-form, it should be a gerund genitive: vestimenta dormiendi
Also possible is vestis/vestimenta nocturna ... the diminutive of vestimenta would indeed be vestimentula ... I don't think this word is found anywhere, though.
Thank you. Vestis is better in that it actually does have an attested diminutive (vesticula), on top of being easier to say. Between dormiendi and nocturna, which do you think a Roman would be more likely to use in describing pajamas?

Thanks for the gerundive/gerund correction - I still haven't reached that part in my textbook, so I actually just picked it up from the forum. The mistake, of course, was mine.
 
B

Bitmap

Guest

Nikolaos dixit:
Iohannes Aurum dixit:
Synthesis dormitoria (substantive plural) is the translation according to John Traupman.
I saw that, but it seemed strange to me... of course, vestimenta dormiendi is also a bit forced, but I only found one hit for synthesis on Perseus.
it occurs with Martial a few times ... but it's Greek and postclassical ... don't know why people use such difficult words when they could just compose something with the help of simple, classical Latin

Bitmap dixit:
if you want to use an nd-form, it should be a gerund genitive: vestimenta dormiendi
Also possible is vestis/vestimenta nocturna ... the diminutive of vestimenta would indeed be vestimentula ... I don't think this word is found anywhere, though.
Thank you. Vestis is better in that it actually does have an attested diminutive (vesticula), on top of being easier to say. Between dormiendi and nocturna, which do you think a Roman would be more likely to use in describing pajamas?

Thanks for the gerundive/gerund correction - I still haven't reached that part in my textbook, so I actually just picked it up from the forum. The mistake, of course, was mine.
It seems to me that objects usually take adjectives in Latin. The gerund usually goes with abstract nouns like ratio (e.g. scribendi), modus (vivendi), facultas (dicendi) etc.
 

Adamas

New Member

I assume Traupman's reasoning is that he's trying his hardest to differentiate pajamas from other types of clothing you might wear at night. He defines synthesis as "a set of matching articles; dinner service; (matching) dinner clothes," which picks out a special feature of pajamas as a matched pair of shirt and pants. The main problem I see with this isn't that the term is Greek, but that there's a bit of an open question about what syntheses actually looked like, which makes appropriating them in a modern context doubly questionable. The diminutive would also be a mouthful; synthesicula perhaps?

Of course, if classicism simply isn't a priority for you and you want to be completely unambiguous, you could just borrow the term from Hindi or English and get paiama ("jammies" being (pa)iamella). It's got no historical standing at all that I know of (though Vicipaedia seems to like it), but it all depends what you're using the word for: If you're writing a pop song in Latin or otherwise want something short that exactly differentiates this article of clothing from all other vestiments of the night, it's at least declinable. It's the sort of term you'd expect if Latin were a living language, with all the corrosive borrowing that must accompany life. :)
 

Imber Ranae

Ranunculus Iracundus

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Nikolaos dixit:
Thanks for the gerundive/gerund correction - I still haven't reached that part in my textbook, so I actually just picked it up from the forum. The mistake, of course, was mine.
I found this on Google Books, which explains pretty comprehensively how gerunds are used and where (and where not) they are interchangeable with the gerundive.
 

JaimeB

Civis Illustris

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I bet the Romans slept naked...
 
 

Matthaeus

Vemortuicida strenuus

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Yeah like medieval people.
 
 

Matthaeus

Vemortuicida strenuus

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I read somewhere in a book on the medieval period that they slept naked. That just occurred to me, is all.
 

JaimeB

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Yup, I did medieval studies in my first gradate school career, and lots of authorities pointed to various sources (in the Arthurian Cycle, for example) in which this seemed to be either explicit or implied that people slept naked. It's been too long since for me to quote chapter and verse, but I remember it quite clearly as a kind of general assumption.
 

deudeditus

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Imagine a Roman wearing a pyjamatoga. It would be plaid.
 
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