u Don't Know What You've Got Till It's Gone
- Thread starter andersk
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How about this...
"non aestimas quae habes quoad illa discedunt."
Literally: “you do not value the things you have until they go awayâ€
I used "value" instead of "know" because using the word for "know" would make it mean, literally, that one is not aware of what they have, and that nuance of appreciation is not there.
I don't know, it's kind of long for a tattoo. Can anyone else tweak this a bit to see if it might be able to fit on a body part?
"non aestimas quae habes quoad illa discedunt."
Literally: “you do not value the things you have until they go awayâ€
I used "value" instead of "know" because using the word for "know" would make it mean, literally, that one is not aware of what they have, and that nuance of appreciation is not there.
I don't know, it's kind of long for a tattoo. Can anyone else tweak this a bit to see if it might be able to fit on a body part?
1. I like aestimas; that's a very clever way to express the sense of the English.
2. I like the choice of quoad .
3. I have reservations about the quae habes.
What this is (it seems to me) is a relative clause without an expressed antecedent. You don't value (the thing) that you have until it is gone. We do this all the time in colloquial English. I know of no rule against it, but it often (as here) seems a little clumsy to me in Latin (except when the antedent would be is, ea, id or an indefinite pronoun). But if we express the rem, we add three letters, and that clearly is not wanted here.
With the rem I would also incline to use eadem rather than illa, adding yet another letter. But this would be regained by the change in the verb:
Non aestimas rem quam habes, quoad eadem discedit.
4. But do we really need a pronoun in the quoad clause at all? If brevity is important, lets cut everything cuttable:
Non aestimas quae habes, quoad discedunt.
5. One could make a case, I suppose, for the perfect instead of the present (discesserunt), but that would add three letters. Yet I think it may be worth it, as the sense of the English seems to me to be closer to "until they have gone" than to "until they are going".
Non aestimas quae habes, quoad discesserunt.
2. I like the choice of quoad .
3. I have reservations about the quae habes.
What this is (it seems to me) is a relative clause without an expressed antecedent. You don't value (the thing) that you have until it is gone. We do this all the time in colloquial English. I know of no rule against it, but it often (as here) seems a little clumsy to me in Latin (except when the antedent would be is, ea, id or an indefinite pronoun). But if we express the rem, we add three letters, and that clearly is not wanted here.
With the rem I would also incline to use eadem rather than illa, adding yet another letter. But this would be regained by the change in the verb:
Non aestimas rem quam habes, quoad eadem discedit.
4. But do we really need a pronoun in the quoad clause at all? If brevity is important, lets cut everything cuttable:
Non aestimas quae habes, quoad discedunt.
5. One could make a case, I suppose, for the perfect instead of the present (discesserunt), but that would add three letters. Yet I think it may be worth it, as the sense of the English seems to me to be closer to "until they have gone" than to "until they are going".
Non aestimas quae habes, quoad discesserunt.
A
Anonymous
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tattoo
I read this correspondence and felt obliged to add:
I feel you should also consider the translation for " you don't know what you've got until it's permanently applied and won't go away again."
I read this correspondence and felt obliged to add:
I feel you should also consider the translation for " you don't know what you've got until it's permanently applied and won't go away again."
My dictionary spurts out:
aestimo : to estimate, guess, reckon, which is a different sort of value than the one I think we're aiming at here.
May I suggest, perhaps, diligo [prize, value, love, appreciate]?
Non diligis quod habes donec abest (has a nice little rhyme to it).
You do not prize what you have until the time it is absent.
---
Edit: Added a t to abes and deleted (it goes).
aestimo : to estimate, guess, reckon, which is a different sort of value than the one I think we're aiming at here.
May I suggest, perhaps, diligo [prize, value, love, appreciate]?
Non diligis quod habes donec abest (has a nice little rhyme to it).
You do not prize what you have until the time it is absent.
---
Edit: Added a t to abes and deleted (it goes).
Nescis quid ha’beas, a’ntequam interi’erit
1. I don't know what those apostrophes are supposed to signify.
2. Nescis quid habeas is what is called an "indirect question". One uses an interrogative (here quid) and the subjunctive (here habeas). "You don't know (what you've got)". In my opinion it is OK here.
Non aestimas quae habes instead uses a relative "You don't value (those things that you have)". In my opinion this is also correct. This could also be put into the form of an indirect question: Non aestimas quid habeas..., which in my opinion combines nice features of both of the others.
3. Antequam and quoad are both ways of saying "before" or "until".
4. Interierit is ambiguous. It could possibly be the pefect subjunctive active third person singular of intereo, but is probably intended to be the future perfect indicative third person singular of that same verb (the subjunctive after antequam has special connotations). Interierit is, I think, a reasonable way to express the idea of the thing insufficiently valued "going away" or being lost.
Discessere is a poetic alternative for discesserunt, the perfect active third person plural of discedo, another perfectly reasonable verb to denote the "going away". In fact I like discedo here better than intereo-- but that's just a matter of taste, I think. The tenses are tricky. I have to admit that the future perfect of whoever authored the intereo version is better (or at least "more Roman") than the perfect of the discedo version. The Romans tended to be more logical than Anglophones in this regard, and would very likely have used the future perfect: "until it shall have gone away" rather than the perfect-- I think the perfect is defensible, but I agree that the future perfect is better.
5. Once again, we might combine the better features of each version (or at least what I feel to be the better features of each version):
Non aestimas quid habeas quoad discesserit
6. In summary, the version atop this post is (if we ignore the mysterious apostrophes) another way of saying the same thing. It has features that I prefer (the indirect question, and the future perfect for the last verb) and features that I do not prefer (nescio for non aestimo, antequam for quoad, and intereo for discedo).
You might show my "compromise" version to the author of the Nescio version, and see what he thinks.
Hope this helps.
1. I don't know what those apostrophes are supposed to signify.
2. Nescis quid habeas is what is called an "indirect question". One uses an interrogative (here quid) and the subjunctive (here habeas). "You don't know (what you've got)". In my opinion it is OK here.
Non aestimas quae habes instead uses a relative "You don't value (those things that you have)". In my opinion this is also correct. This could also be put into the form of an indirect question: Non aestimas quid habeas..., which in my opinion combines nice features of both of the others.
3. Antequam and quoad are both ways of saying "before" or "until".
4. Interierit is ambiguous. It could possibly be the pefect subjunctive active third person singular of intereo, but is probably intended to be the future perfect indicative third person singular of that same verb (the subjunctive after antequam has special connotations). Interierit is, I think, a reasonable way to express the idea of the thing insufficiently valued "going away" or being lost.
Discessere is a poetic alternative for discesserunt, the perfect active third person plural of discedo, another perfectly reasonable verb to denote the "going away". In fact I like discedo here better than intereo-- but that's just a matter of taste, I think. The tenses are tricky. I have to admit that the future perfect of whoever authored the intereo version is better (or at least "more Roman") than the perfect of the discedo version. The Romans tended to be more logical than Anglophones in this regard, and would very likely have used the future perfect: "until it shall have gone away" rather than the perfect-- I think the perfect is defensible, but I agree that the future perfect is better.
5. Once again, we might combine the better features of each version (or at least what I feel to be the better features of each version):
Non aestimas quid habeas quoad discesserit
6. In summary, the version atop this post is (if we ignore the mysterious apostrophes) another way of saying the same thing. It has features that I prefer (the indirect question, and the future perfect for the last verb) and features that I do not prefer (nescio for non aestimo, antequam for quoad, and intereo for discedo).
You might show my "compromise" version to the author of the Nescio version, and see what he thinks.
Hope this helps.