malam rem; chap.37, ex. 25, p.442

john abshire

Well-Known Member

  • Patronus

Romani, si quid mali loqui volebant, saepe dicebant: "Abi in malam rem."
The Romans, if they wanted to say something bad, often used to say: "Go to the devil."

2 questions; "something bad" and rem
where does the "something bad" come from?
I would translate this as "The romans, if anyone bad wanted to speak, ........."
how does mali become "something bad", (genitive or accusative plural, not accusative).

I can't get "the devil" from rem, unless the author wants to define malam rem as "a bad place",
but them I would use locus,-i for place, not rem.
I am thinking the literal translation is:
"The romans, if anyone bad wanted to speak, often said: "Go into bad affairs/things/properties."
is this correct, literally?

edits in bold red
 
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Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

  • Censor

Location:
Bohemia
There isn't "anyone" (I suppose one could phrase it loosely as such for the sake of English, but strictly speaking, there is no such word); volēbant has a third person plural subject*. "mali" doesn't have to be an adjective, it could just as well be a genitive of malum, ī (=a bad thing), "quid" can be "aliquid" when it comes after "sī".

*that means some noun in nominative plural that preceded it somewhere in the sentence.

And with malam rem we come into idioms and established sayings. Romans swore with "go [away] to the bad thing" (what is that bad thing is left to your imagination, it could be... a part of the body e.g.?). But how do we translate swears? Do we translate them word by word or are we trying to understand how strong emotion it stirred, so we can find a swear phrase in the target language that conveys a similar emotion? The English say "go to hell", Czechs (I'm Czech) say e.g. "go to the ass" or "go to the toilet[very ugly toilet]". As you can see, it is very awkward to translate them between languages word by word...
 
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john abshire

Well-Known Member

  • Patronus

There isn't "anyone" (I suppose one could phrase it loosely as such for the sake of English, but strictly speaking, there is no such word); volēbant has a third person plural subject*. "mali" doesn't have to be an adjective, it could just as well be a genitive of malum, ī (=a bad thing), "quid" can be "aliquid" when it comes after "sī".

*that means some noun in nominative plural that preceded it somewhere in the sentence.

And with malam rem we come into idioms and established sayings. Romans sweared with "go [away] to the bad thing" (what is that bad thing is left to your imagination, it could be... a part of the body e.g.?). But how do we translate swears? Do we translate them word by word or are we trying to understand how strong emotion it stirred, so we can find a swear phrase in the target language that conveys a similar emotion? The English say "go to hell", Czechs (I'm Czech) say e.g. "go to the ass" or "go to the toilet[very ugly toilet]". As you can see, it is very awkward to translate them between languages word by word...
anyone; actually I made 2 mistakes typing the book's translation. [I am getting lax.]
I made the corrections on my post; "they" and "used to say" in place of "anyone" and "said".

mali If it is genitive of malum "a bad thing", that doesn't help, unless volebant loqui takes the genitive.
on second thought- do you think that in Romani, si quid mali loqui volebant. that quid mali is "something bad"? If so, why mali, and not malum?
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
Czechs (I'm Czech) say e.g. "go to the ass" or "go to the toilet[very ugly toilet]"
That's nice!
anyone; actually I made 2 mistakes typing the book's translation. [I am getting lax.]
I made the corrections on my post; "they" and "used to say" in place of "anyone" and "said".

mali If it is genitive of malum "a bad thing", that doesn't help, unless volebant loqui takes the genitive.
on second thought- do you think that in Romani, si quid mali loqui volebant. that quid mali is "something bad"? If so, why mali, and not malum?
Neuter pronouns like (ali)quid often take a partitive genitive. You can think of quid mali as approximately "something/anything (in the way) of (a) bad (thing)", maybe, but literally it's just "something/anything of bad", and idiomatically translated it's just "something/anything bad".
 

john abshire

Well-Known Member

  • Patronus

That's nice!

Neuter pronouns like (ali)quid often take a partitive genitive. You can think of quid mali as approximately "something/anything (in the way) of (a) bad (thing)", maybe, but literally it's just "something/anything of bad", and idiomatically translated it's just "something/anything bad".
Thank you
 
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