Tattoo What man is a man who does not make the world better?

[Pacifica]

The precise meaning of "like" is part of the problem.

What do you mean? Like = resembling vs. like = just the same?

Almost certainly; the question though is what senses? More importantly Quid viri est vir...? and "What man is a man...?" diverge significantly in terms of approach, emphasis and meaning.

Here is how I interpret the two vir: quid viri = what of a man, what kind of man, with some pejorative feeling to it, as in the case of someone indignantly exclaiming "what (kind of) man would do such a thing?"; vir = "man" in a fairly neuter sense, a person having at first sight the attributes of the masculine gender, and whom you might thus expect to behave as a man, though the first part of the sentence leads you to understand that the person saying the sentence thinks he doesn't as he should. I interpret the English the same way (or I should rather say: I interpreted the English like that, hence my translation which I felt reflected it).

 

[Aurifex]

as in the case of someone indignantly exclaiming "what (kind of) man would do such a thing?".

Out of your own mouth you've just unwittingly acknowledged the redundancy of the second vir in your own construction, and demonstrated into the bargain that what the OP means by "What man is a man...?" is clearly not what you understand by it.

 

[Pacifica]

I really don't see how.

 

[socratidion]

Seems we have two rival understandings of the OP's post, which depend partly on different stress of the key words.

1) I and Aurifex take it as "What man is a man who does not make the world better". Paraphrasing: Given that someone is a man, I would expect him to make the world better. If he failed to do so, I wouldn't consider him a man at all.
2) Pacis Puella takes it as "What man is a man who does not make the world better". Paraphrasing: it's hard to imagine the case of a man who does not make the world better. But if such a thing happened, I would consider him a an odd specimen of manliness."

Which words are redundant? In (1), I could happily write 'Who is a man who...'. Because the first 'man' is less important than the second. In (2), it would be 'what man is someone who... ', because the second 'man' is less important than the first.

Simple solution: find out which way they actually say it in the movie.

 

[Pacifica]

2) Pacis Puella takes it as "What man is a man who does not make the world better". Paraphrasing: it's hard to imagine the case of a man who does not make the world better. But if such a thing happened, I would consider him a an odd specimen of manliness."

I absolutely don't interpret it like that. I think you haven't read my posts.

1) I and Aurifex take it as "What man is a man who does not make the world better". Paraphrasing: Given that someone is a man, I would expect him to make the world better. If he failed to do so, I wouldn't consider him a man at all.

I interpret it like this too. Re-read what I've written:

Here is how I interpret the two vir: quid viri = what of a man, what kind of man, with some pejorative feeling to it, as in the case of someone indignantly exclaiming "what (kind of) man would do such a thing?"; vir = "man" in a fairly neuter sense, a person having at first sight the attributes of the masculine gender, and whom you might thus expect to behave as a man, though the first part of the sentence leads you to understand that the person saying the sentence thinks he doesn't as he should. I interpret the English the same way (or I should rather say: I interpreted the English like that, hence my translation which I felt reflected it).

What man = pejorative, implying that it's certainly not a man worthy of the name.
A man = someone who is at first sight a man and should be expected to behave as such, but the first part, the pejorative "what man?" makes understand he doesn't as he should... I'm repeating myself but it seems like I really need to, as obviously you had misunderstood (unless even not read) what I was saying.

 

[socratidion]

I protest: but this is not the place.

 

[Matthaeus]

If it comes down to an argument, I would go for the version that is recommended by the majority here (Aurifex's and socratidion's).

 

[Iain]

Hope i'm not causing drama lol.

I am starting to see why there was so many variants

 

[socratidion]

No, we always argue like this: part of the problem is that no-one actually speaks the language, who would just 'know' the answer, so agreement is never straightforward. Further, the task would be hard anyway: when you speak your own language you probably don't notice how particular it is, the way you use idioms, the way you depend on people sharing similar assumptions, having similar cultural background. Try to take all that and put it into an ancient language that, believe me, shared few of those assumptions and cultural commonplaces, and you've got yourself a real uncrackable nut.

We do our best to save people from lame, ungrammatical Latin: I hope we've managed that for you.

 

[SwiftFish55]

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