Last man standing

Tim4567890

New Member

Hello everyone,

what is the Latin translation of "last man standing" ?

It's supposed to be put on a belt which is awarded to the winner of a tournament a friend of mine is hosting.

Your help is greatly appreciated
 

Tim4567890

New Member

Hello Michael, thanks for the quick reply. I mean "adult male human being".

I don't wanna bore you with all the details but it's basically an armwrestling tournament format in which the winners of the respective weight classes at the end compete in the open class against each other to find out the absolute #1. At the end there's gonna be 1 man left who gets the belt.
 
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Michael Zwingli

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Then, I would say: Mas ultimus stans, meaning literally "Last man standing". If you like the sound of it better, you could alternately phrase this Vir ultimus stans, also meaning "Last man standing", and if you want to provide a bit of context, you can say Mas/Vir ultimus Stans post certamen, both meaning "Last man standing after the contest/struggle".

Before you begin tooling the leather, wait until I get some verification ("thumbs up") of these translations, or to see how others might phrase this.
 

Michael Zwingli

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Extremus qui superest came to my mind:think:
If he were to go that route, then supervivit might be somewhat less ambiguous a verb. I like extremus as an adjective, though. It seems more in line with the sense of "last" that we are looking for than is ultimus.

In my view, the problem with extremus qui superest is that it seems to be something of an oblique statement, almost as if it were meant to be an auxiliary clause, and I think that the OP desires a strongly indicative statement. Maybe I am wrong about that?
 

Adrian

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If he were to go that route, then supervivit might be somewhat less ambiguous a verb. I like extremus as an adjective, though. It seems more in line with the sense of "last" that we are looking for than is ultimus.

In my view, the problem with extremus qui superest is that it seems to be something of an oblique statement, almost as if it were meant to be an auxiliary clause, and I think that the OP desires a strongly indicative statement. Maybe I am wrong about that?
Interesting point.:think:

Unless I'm mistaken "last man standing" refers to "lone survivor" of some event like fight, battle, cataclysm.
Perhaps Ultimus in acie stans; [ultimus/ solus] superstes; ultimus reliquus:think:
 

Michael Zwingli

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Let me try to outline what we can know at this point in the discussion.

The OP has asked for a translation of a noun phrase. It is, in particular, an objective noun phrase of the type known in English as a predicative nominal; the subject and main verb of the sentence of which this predicative nominal must rationally be a part, "he" and "is" respectively, are left unstated. The full sentence here would be: He is the last man standing. In English, though, the phrase last man standing has achieved the status of an idiom. Since it is an idiom that we are being asked to translate, I think that we should try to avoid an excess of functional equivalency; our translation should be as directly equivalent as Latin semantics will allow.

The only noun in our predicative nominal is "man", which describes what type of thing the unspoken yet suggested subject "he" is. Since "man" is stated in the original idiom, I think that we should overtly state "man" in the translation.

Said "man" is qualified by the adjective "last", here meaning "remaining after a time period during which a series of events has occurred". I think @Adrian's extremus to be a superior adjective to my suggested ultimus for conveying this meaning. Ultimus renders the meaning "last in a series", while giving no overt intimation of the passage of time; extremus, on the other hand, gives a sense of "last after a period of time during which things may have occurred (in the instant case, an arm-wrestling competition)"...it is this second sense that we are looking for.

Regarding verbal action, the only hint of it suggested in the phrase last man standing is that suggested by the non-finite participle. I would tend to suggest that we try to replicate that in Latin, in order to maintain the character of a predicative nominal. If we introduce a finite verb such as superest, supervivit, or superstes, or for that matter even est, then we sabotage any effort to do that. I suggest, then, that we should let non-finite stans provide the sole intimation of verbal action in our translation.

Based on the considerations described above, I might suggest Mas extremus stans as a basic translation, to which @Tim4567890 can attach something like ecce at the front, and/or something like ultra aciem at the back, as he, or perhaps his client, desires. What do you fellows think, especially about the "tenor" of that in the Latin?
 
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cinefactus

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I am not sure what the benefit of putting mas is. ultimus already means the last man. mas ultimus sounds like the last embedded male in a band of Amazons.

You could probably get away with just ultimus in acie
 
 

Matthaeus

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Lol, Cinefacto quidem adsentior.
 
 

Godmy

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Estne tibi cognitum, @Matthaeus, quōmodo Polōnicē rem reddideris? Ego vērē nesciō quem in modum dīxerim Bohēmicē... id est, nihil ejus modī dīcimus Bohēmī (aut nōn habeō prō certō an idem sit), ergō quicquid dīxerō, mīra erit conversiō. Eō dictō, quid nōbīs Latīnē dīcendum est, sī linguīs māternīs maximē mīrum?!
 
 

Matthaeus

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Hmm re vera neque ego scio an tale quid et Polonice exstet...
:think:
 
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