Strong

LightWithin

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Guys, help me out. I need the word ‘strong’ translated for a tattoo. Google Translate says ‘strong=fortis’ is this correct? *possibly strong=forctis?
 

Issacus Divus

H₃rḗǵs h₁n̥dʰéri diwsú

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Yes, fortis means strong.
 
B

Bitmap

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I advise against creating your tattoo phrases with google translate.
 
 

cinefactus

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What do you mean by strong? Can lift heavy weights, withstand hostile forces, strong willed, able to withstand temptation?
 

LightWithin

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So, I should not do a single Latin word on a tattoo? Also, is there a difference between ‘strong body’ vs ‘strong mind’? Lastly, I am mostly worried that forctis is an adjective and fortis is an adverb? Maybe? Idk
 
 

cinefactus

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Lastly, I am mostly worried that forctis is an adjective and fortis is an adverb? Maybe? Idk
fortis is a Latin adjective meaning strong
forctis is Google for what kind of idiot uses Google Translate for a tattoo?


Can you put what you mean by strong into a sentence?
 

scrabulista

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There's mens sana in corpore sano by the poet Juvenal ("a sound mind in a sound body")
 

Michael Zwingli

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It may be a bit too late for this fellow, but there is an Ancient Greek adjective which means both "strong in mind" and "strong in body" (more closely "healthy in mind" and "healthy in body"): ὑγιής (transliteration: hugiés). The poor guy probably aready has "FORCTIS" on his arm by now!!! :oops:
(but, yeah, Google Translate is a special level of a language failure)
It's primarily the inflection (though that doesn't explain forctis). The Google programmers obviously couldn't be bothered to make allowance for it. Put more than three words together into Google Translate, and out comes...Latin gobbledygook.
As an aside, the modern human ego seems to know no bounds. I believe that to be an effect of what Galbraith called our "affluent society"; the human mind unfettered by limitation tending to run amok. I think that I'll have "WEAK" tattooed on my forehead just to keep my head from swelling all out of proportion to reality! Then, I will only change that to "STRONG" when I can bench press more than Eric Spoto (which will be never).
 
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Michael Zwingli

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While laying, yesterday evening, on my pallet in my bleak cell (I know, I'm a goofball), and ruminating on the rather heavy facetiousness of my final comments here of yesterday, I was instantly struck, in the manner of an epiphany, with the realization that there is a Latin adjective which carries precisely the same meanings as Greek ὑγιής. Jumping from my bed, and shouting "eureka!", as I thrust a right index finger skyward in the obligatory gesture, I hurried to write down said epiphany, lest I forget it before the morning. This is what I wrote on my notepad: sanus, "sound (strong) in body"/"sound (strong) in mind", and that is even better for being derived from the IE lemma meaning "healthy". This might have done for the questioner here, if he could get past the fact of the more restrictive English language descendant of sanus, sane, which only really means sound of mind. Perhaps ὑγιής (hugiés) might be better for him after all, though, since I believe that it has cognates in other branches of the IE language family which carry more precisely the meaning of physical/bodily strength, such as the Proto-Indo-Iranian *Hugrás, meaning "powerful", "mighty", "strong". If the questioner insisted upon a Latin term with the exact meaning of bodily/muscular strength, however, he probably would have wanted to use the participle valēns, though, or the adjective validus, rather than fortis. Although,
I’m thinking, ‘strong mind, strong body’ will be on my tattoo. I might not use a complete phrase though.
So...either validus et sanus, or simply sanus, right?
 
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Tironis

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Is there an Ulrich Zwingli among your ancestors by any chance? Just curious.
 

Michael Zwingli

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The Christian fanatic (oops), I mean Protestant reformer? Nope, not that I know of, but one never knows. He probably would have hated me, though, as I am a Zwingli who was raised Roman Catholic (at my mom's family's insistence), and now I am a staunch atheist, although not quite an anti-theist à la Richard Dawkins, Chris Hitchens, and their ilk (though I do agree with Dawkins that the belief in "God" is based upon a profound delusion). Rather, I'm more in line with Bertrand Russell's thinking upon the topic...there is no proof, no evidence for what is essentially a fantastic assertion. A critical thinker does not need Darwin in order to place the assertion of God in the "I'll buy that for a dollar" category. Even so, I still have a profound respect for the R.C. church, though, for manifold reasons, and fully recognize the purpose fulfilled by, and thus the need for, religion of some type in human society (guess that's one place where I differ from Dawkins) Sorry, I'm digressing...
 
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Tironis

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I bet I'm not the first one to enquire - quite a useful name to have to get a conversation going at a party. On a good day I am an atheist with all that that entails - on a bad day I keep thinking, hmm, maybe I should be an agnostic. I think it was Einstein who said: I cannot prove that God does not exist.
 

Michael Zwingli

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I bet I'm not the first one to enquire...
You're the first on here, though...although Bitmap once referred to me as his "helvetic" friend, which made me feel a bit like something I would like to eat with crackers! Luckily for me, "Zwingli" conforms phonologically with the many English surnames ending in "-ly" and "-ley" (the first as an adverbial suffix and the second as a locative suffix from Anglo-Saxon "leigh"/"a field/clearing/pasture").
On a good day I am an atheist with all that that entails - on a bad day I keep thinking, hmm, maybe I should be an agnostic.
I don't want to stray too far off-topic, lest Pacifica lay the ruler across our knuckles, but I agree wholeheartedly with Einstein (thanks, I never read that quotation, can you reference it for me?) To me, that is the difference between an "atheist" (one who believes that the two assertions: "there is a God who lives in heaven" and "there is no god" are equally presumptuous), and an "antitheist" (one who believes the assertions "there is no god" and "there are no such things as gods" are reasonable and obvious, and who considers any concession to theism worthy of the most scathing ridicule). My own opinion is of the former type; for myself, the existence of any god remains an "unproven possibility". I can live happily with that position, will conduct myself accordingly, and will continue to wait for evidence...but I would certainly not be so arrogant as to claim positively that "there is no such thing as god", which assertion seems to myself as (normally) unprovable a statement as "there is a God in heaven". To me, the term "agnostic" represents a bit of a cop-out for someone who is loath, for whatever reasons might be, to call himself "atheist". We can and should "know" enough to come to a reasonable opinion about these things, and the "agnostic" seems to be someone who is afraid to take a well defined position and instead wants to shrug his shoulders and say "I know nothing about all of that".
 
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Tironis

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Sorry to say the best I can come up with is this Wiki entry:
. . . When asked for more precise responses in 1954, Einstein replied: "About God, I cannot accept any concept based on the authority of the Church. [...] As long as I can remember, I have resented mass indoctrination. I do not believe in the fear of life, in the fear of death, in blind faith. I cannot prove to you that there is no personal God, but if I were to speak of him, I would be a liar. I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. My God created laws that take care of that. His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking but by immutable laws."[71] . . . Like Spinoza, Einstein was a strict determinist who believed that human behavior was completely determined by causal laws. For that reason, he refused the chance aspect of quantum theory, famously telling Niels Bohr: "God does not play dice with the universe."[77] In letters sent to physicist Max Born, Einstein revealed his belief in causal relationships:

You believe in a God who plays dice, and I in complete law and order in a world which objectively exists, and which I in a wildly speculative way, am trying to capture. I firmly believe, but I hope that someone will discover a more realistic way, or rather a more tangible basis than it has been my lot to find. Even the great initial success of the quantum theory does not make me believe in the fundamental dice game, although I am well aware that some of our younger colleagues interpret this as a consequence of senility.[78]
.
 
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