Latin phrase for wedidng band

  • Thread starter Thread starter BrokenFortress
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
GorgerCracker said:
Funny you like his post when he agrees with me. “Nobody but death” and “nothing but death” express similar sentiments, but “nemo nisi mors” can only accurately be translated “nobody but death” because that is what it means and it only means that, no matter what sentiment it expresses.
Click to expand...
For the nth time, I have never said that the word “nemo” means anything but no one (or nobody?) or that the phrase translates into anything other than what we all agree it translates to. But I do believe that the phrase has a double contextual meaning.

chrysostim83 said that the dictionary definition of the phrase, word by word, can only be translated as “no one but death”…Which I agree with. But, at the same time, “nemo nisi mors” can be expressed semantically (semantics = study of word meanings) as “nothing but death” as well as “no one/nobody but death”. I believe from my own research that the semantics in this case are framed by the context of historical usage.
 
ac_claire said:
For the nth time, I have never said that the word “nemo” means anything but no one (or nobody?) or that the phrase translates into anything other than what we all agree it translates to. But I do believe that the phrase has a double contextual meaning.

chrysostim83 said that the dictionary definition of the phrase, word by word, can only be translated as “no one but death”…Which I agree with. But, at the same time, “nemo nisi mors” can be expressed semantically (semantics = study of word meanings) as “nothing but death” as well as “no one/nobody but death”. I believe from my own research that the semantics in this case are framed by the context of historical usage.
Click to expand...
I am so bored with having to read your childish argument over and over. You are wrong. Your ring says, “Nobody but death…” It’s boring, it’s stupid, and it would express nothing to anyone who wasn’t told what came after the ellipsis. No one who knew and read Latin fluently would get “nothing but death” from “nobody but death.” They would just think, “Huh, that’s weird. Maybe the engraver died before he could finish his sentence.” So that’s what you have on you wedding ring. Boring, bad, weird Latin in a half-finished phrase. Enjoy it. I hope your marriage is better than the mediocre sentiment on your ring.

And would you please stop boring me to death by hectoring me? Your argument would only be convincing to someone who knew as little Latin as you do.
 
Ponyguy said:
You’ve had a lot of suggestions, five pages that I can see; but since you asked for “Other good phrases,” I’ll offer the following:

How about something quite meaningful in English that your soon-to-be husband can instinctively understand?

Like: “If you’re reading this, put the ring back on.”
Click to expand...
tee_eff_em said:
:rotfl:

Si potes legere, repone annulum

:rotfl:
tee
Click to expand...
I would translate this:

Si hoc legis, digito annulum apta! 😉
 
GorgerCracker said:
I am so bored with having to read your childish argument over and over. You are wrong. Your ring says, “Nobody but death…” It’s boring, it’s stupid, and it would express nothing to anyone who wasn’t told what came after the ellipsis. No one who knew and read Latin fluently would get “nothing but death” from “nobody but death.” They would just think, “Huh, that’s weird. Maybe the engraver died before he could finish his sentence.” So that’s what you have on you wedding ring. Boring, bad, weird Latin in a half-finished phrase. Enjoy it. I hope your marriage is better than the mediocre sentiment on your ring.

And would you please stop boring me to death by hectoring me? Your argument would only be convincing to someone who knew as little Latin as you do.
Click to expand...
Go back and read this thread and you’ll see exactly who’s “hectoring” who, who won’t let the subject drop and who keeps repeating the same childish ad hominem attacks over and over and over again as though they make a real argument. I’ve received private messages of sympathy over the past week, GC, because of the way you’ve handled yourself in this thread towards me.

You get no sympathy. If your arguments can’t stand up on their own and you’re at the point where you feel the need to throw a public hissy fit, then stop replying…and if you can’t do that, then stop being insulting. Simple. It’s called acting like a grown up.
 
GorgerCracker said:
**I am so bored with having to read your childish argument over and over. You are wrong. Your ring says, “Nobody but death…” It’s boring, it’s stupid, and it would express nothing to anyone who wasn’t told what came after the ellipsis. No one who knew and read Latin fluently would get “nothing but death” from “nobody but death.” They would just think, “Huh, that’s weird. Maybe the engraver died before he could finish his sentence.” So that’s what you have on you wedding ring. Boring, bad, weird Latin in a half-finished phrase. Enjoy it. I hope your marriage is better than the mediocre sentiment on your ring.

And would you please stop boring me to death by hectoring me? Your argument would only be convincing to someone who knew as little Latin as you do**.
Click to expand...
Who exactly is “hectoring” who? Who keeps repeating the same childish ad hominem attacks over and over and over again as though they make a real argument, instead of addressing the questions at hand? I’ve actually received private messages of sympathy over the past week, GC, because of the way you’ve handled yourself in this thread towards me.

You get no sympathy. If your arguments can’t stand up on their own and you’re at the point where you feel the need to throw a public hissy fit, then stop replying…and if you can’t do that, then debate like an adult and stop being insulting. Simple. It’s called acting like a grown up.
 
ac_claire said:
Who exactly is “hectoring” who? Who keeps repeating the same childish ad hominem attacks over and over and over again as though they make a real argument, instead of addressing the questions at hand? I’ve actually received private messages of sympathy over the past week, GC, because of the way you’ve handled yourself in this thread towards me.

You get no sympathy. If your arguments can’t stand up on their own and you’re at the point where you feel the need to throw a public hissy fit, then stop replying…and if you can’t do that, then debate like an adult and stop being insulting. Simple. It’s called acting like a grown up.
Click to expand...
Give me break. I have backed up what I said with dictionaries and a Latin professor. You have backed up what you said with Google and… oh, that’s right, nothing else. Unless you call vague references to “other sources” actual evidence.

I don’t care how many private messages you’ve received. If you want me to stop writing to you, then stop writing nonsense to me. It’s that simple. 🤷

I’m not throwing a hissy fit. I am just B-O-R-E-D with listening to you defend an inscription. You have not made one convincing argument this whole time. Sorry. And I only insulted the inscription and your flawed arguments, not you. You are free to love “nemo nisi mors” and have it painted onto your house for all I care.

Anyway, if you really want this to end, then don’t write back. It really is that simple. You kept writing, so I assumed you were enjoying yourself.
 
If this goes on much longer I’m going to start selling “No One But Death” t-shirts, coffee mugs, bumper stickers, baseball hats…
perhaps an album entltled “Over My Dead Body!” by the group "No-One-But-Death and the Deathettes"!…
 
ac_claire said:
For the nth time, I have never said that the word “nemo” means anything but no one (or nobody?) or that the phrase translates into anything other than what we all agree it translates to. **But I do believe that the phrase has a double contextual meaning. **

chrysostim83 said that the dictionary definition of the phrase, word by word, can only be translated as “no one but death”…Which I agree with. But, at the same time, “nemo nisi mors” can be expressed semantically (semantics = study of word meanings) as “nothing but death” as well as “no one/nobody but death”. I believe from my own research that the semantics in this case are framed by the context of historical usage.
Click to expand...
I’m afraid I don’t agree with you either. Latin has plenty of words and expressions for nothing. If the person who came up with this thing had wanted to say nothing but death, he or she would have. I don’t know what your research was, but I don’t get how you can argue for the nothing but death meaning. It’s just not there in the Latin, and Latin is a rich enough language that that meaning could have easily been included in the original had it been sought after.

Don’t be mad. Just my two cents. ❤️
 
former_Catholic said:
If this goes on much longer I’m going to start selling “No One But Death” t-shirts, coffee mugs, bumper stickers, baseball hats…
perhaps an album entltled “Over My Dead Body!” by the group "No-One-But-Death and the Deathettes"!…
Click to expand...
:rotfl: Very funny. Don’t forget to sell rings with nemo nisi mors on them! And then you could have joke rings with nemo nisi Morris on them! 🙂
 
FriendlyFace said:
I’m afraid I don’t agree with you either. Latin has plenty of words and expressions for nothing. If the person who came up with this thing had wanted to say nothing but death, he or she would have. I don’t know what your research was, but I don’t get how you can argue for the nothing but death meaning. It’s just not there in the Latin, and Latin is a rich enough language that that meaning could have easily been included in the original had it been sought after.

Don’t be mad. Just my two cents. ❤️
Click to expand...
I’m not mad at all, hon. 🙂 The key to why I believe what I do about this is in the bolded sentence above. “If the person who came up with this thing had wanted to say “nothing but death”, he or she would have.” That’s just the thing…who exactly came up with this phrase…? Nobody seems to know. It’s at least 500 years old, most likely older, going by the jewelry that has been found with this engraving on it. And the translation given for these pieces is as often given as “Nothing but death will part us” as any other definition. Why do you think that is? Because everyone who’s ever translated it that way is “lame” and “stupid” and “B-O-R-I-N-G”, as the very mature GC keeps saying? Or could it be that both meanings have some validity?

That’s what I believe, because otherwise *why *has the inscription been historically translated both ways? And why has the technincally incorrect “nothing but death will part us” stood the test of time? 🤷 I suspect that the double meaning has more to do with sentiment than technically precise language. (And that’s really all I’m debating for…sentiment more than anything else.) Perhaps this happened when it became a popular inscription for wedding bands, and “nothing but death will part us” was seen as a more faithful mirroring of the wedding vows? I don’t know. (That last part is just my personal musing on the subject and I have no idea if it’s true. So you’re of course free to disagree. :D)
 
GorgerCracker said:
I’m not throwing a hissy fit. I am just B-O-R-E-D with listening to you defend an inscription. You have not made one convincing argument this whole time. Sorry. And I only insulted the inscription and your flawed arguments, not you. You are free to love “nemo nisi mors” and have it painted onto your house for all I care.

Anyway, if you really want this to end, then don’t write back. It really is that simple. You kept writing, so I assumed you were enjoying yourself.
Click to expand...
Still sounds like a full-on 5th-grader-on-the-playground hissy fit to me, GC. Especially the capitalized, spelled out “B-O-R-E-D” lol. That’s classic. 😃 Personally, when things bore me that much, I stop doing them.

I’m essentially on house arrest because of this heat wave, waiting to go into labor literally any day now. So I’m very grateful for the distraction of the internet! I never said I wanted this to stop. I just hope you don’t die of boredom before the thread is closed.

And again, I could care less if you like or don’t like “nemo nisi mors”…Although your rudeness initially surprised then grated on me, why would I care that you insulted an inscription? It certainly doesn’t belong to me. In fact, our actual inscription is “NNM” so if we were really so “disappointed” as you keep saying over and over again, we could just tell everyone that it stands for “nihil nisi mors”. (Which I believe you suggested.)
former_Catholic said:
If this goes on much longer I’m going to start selling “No One But Death” t-shirts, coffee mugs, bumper stickers, baseball hats…
perhaps an album entltled “Over My Dead Body!” by the group "No-One-But-Death and the Deathettes"!…
Click to expand...
Cute. 😃
 
ac_claire said:
Still sounds like a full-on 5th-grader-on-the-playground hissy fit to me, GC. Especially the capitalized, spelled out “B-O-R-E-D” lol. That’s classic. 😃 Personally, when things bore me that much, I stop doing them.

I’m essentially on house arrest because of this heat wave, waiting to go into labor literally any day now. So I’m very grateful for the distraction of the internet! I never said I wanted this to stop. I just hope you don’t die of boredom before the thread is closed.

And again, I could care less if you like or don’t like “nemo nisi mors”…Although your rudeness initially surprised then grated on me, why would I care that you insulted an inscription? It certainly doesn’t belong to me. In fact, our actual inscription is “NNM” so if we were really so “disappointed” as you keep saying over and over again, we could just tell everyone that it stands for “nihil nisi mors”. (Which I believe you suggested.)
Click to expand...
Doesn’t EVERYBODY know that a smart person DOES NOT tick off a (very!) pregnant woman?

Especially a (very!) pregnant woman who is extremely uncomfortable due to the current Midwestern wave of heat and/or humidity?

Good luck, Ms. AC Claire! 👍
 
ac_claire said:
Still sounds like a full-on 5th-grader-on-the-playground hissy fit to me, GC. Especially the capitalized, spelled out “B-O-R-E-D” lol. That’s classic. 😃 Personally, when things bore me that much, I stop doing them.

I’m essentially on house arrest because of this heat wave, waiting to go into labor literally any day now. So I’m very grateful for the distraction of the internet! I never said I wanted this to stop. I just hope you don’t die of boredom before the thread is closed.

And again, I could care less if you like or don’t like “nemo nisi mors”…Although your rudeness initially surprised then grated on me, why would I care that you insulted an inscription? It certainly doesn’t belong to me. In fact, our actual inscription is “NNM” so if we were really so “disappointed” as you keep saying over and over again, we could just tell everyone that it stands for “nihil nisi mors”. (Which I believe you suggested.)
Click to expand...
Dude, I feel sorry for you. You don’t know how to make a convincing argument and so you just lose your temper and complain.

I didn’t suggest you do anything except stop posting. Probably a good idea if you’re going to give birth soon. Stressing yourself out is bad for the baby.
 
ac_claire said:
I’m not mad at all, hon. 🙂 The key to why I believe what I do about this is in the bolded sentence above. “If the person who came up with this thing had wanted to say “nothing but death”, he or she would have.” That’s just the thing…who exactly came up with this phrase…? Nobody seems to know. It’s at least 500 years old, most likely older, going by the jewelry that has been found with this engraving on it. And the translation given for these pieces is as often given as “Nothing but death will part us” as any other definition. Why do you think that is? Because everyone who’s ever translated it that way is “lame” and “stupid” and “B-O-R-I-N-G”, as the very mature GC keeps saying? Or could it be that both meanings have some validity?

That’s what I believe, because otherwise *why *has the inscription been historically translated both ways? And why has the technincally incorrect “nothing but death will part us” stood the test of time? 🤷 I suspect that the double meaning has more to do with sentiment than technically precise language. (And that’s really all I’m debating for…sentiment more than anything else.) Perhaps this happened when it became a popular inscription for wedding bands, and “nothing but death will part us” was seen as a more faithful mirroring of the wedding vows? I don’t know. (That last part is just my personal musing on the subject and I have no idea if it’s true. So you’re of course free to disagree. :D)
Click to expand...
I think you’re on shaky ground. Unless you can prove that it has traditionally been translated nothing but death, the likelihood is that this is a modern false translation, and people are just copying each other’s false translations. That’s why one sees this translation all over the net. Do you have any support for your traditional translation idea? Because you really haven’t demonstrated that this is an historical translation.

I realize your pregnant, so I don’t want to make you mad again. But you really have no evidence, and so I think it’s likely that GC is right. I’ve scouted around too, and I’ve noticed that the more reputable sites give the nobody/no one but death translation. Any other translation is so loose it just isn’t correct. 😊

Also, it seems to have originated with Swedish Queen Katarina Jagellonica. But I have that from an online source, so who knows if it’s true or not. 😉 You know, you could translate it very loosely as only death will part us. Maybe that would appease everyone?
 
chrysostim83 said:
It’s possible the word “means” has gotten overloaded in this discussion. Maybe everyone could agree that
  • “Nemo nisi mors” means “no one but death”. That is, according to the syntax and semantics of good Latin and English, the two phrases are the only accurate translations of each other.
  • “Nemo nisi mors” expresses “nothing but death”. That is, according to the semantics that get applied above and beyond languages (the sort of semantics that tells us that “it’s chilly in here” really means “turn on the heater”), the two phrases share the same import.
Whether one finds it tacky to use personification in place of abstraction is pretty much a matter of taste. Chaque un a son gout, or whatever.
Click to expand...
Good post 👍 My dh was looking over my shoulder and said “10 bucks its a girl arguing with a guy” He knows all about the “its chilly in here” really means “turn on the heater” turn or phrase. :rotfl:

This phrase could “mean” different things depending on what context it appears. If you read “nemo nisi mors” in a medical text, you probably wouldn’t translate it “no one” but if in a poem or song you probably would. Does that make sense to people?
 
Ponyguy said:
Doesn’t EVERYBODY know that a smart person DOES NOT tick off a (very!) pregnant woman?

Especially a (very!) pregnant woman who is extremely uncomfortable due to the current Midwestern wave of heat and/or humidity?

Good luck, Ms. AC Claire! 👍
Click to expand...
:rotfl: thank you for brightening my (our) day, Ponyguy. 😃
 
jilly4ski said:
Good post 👍 My dh was looking over my shoulder and said “10 bucks its a girl arguing with a guy” He knows all about the “its chilly in here” really means “turn on the heater” turn or phrase. :rotfl:

This phrase could “mean” different things depending on what context it appears. If you read “nemo nisi mors” in a medical text, you probably wouldn’t translate it “no one” but if in a poem or song you probably would. Does that make sense to people?
Click to expand...
:confused: Why on earth would this be in a medical text? And why would you translate it less literally if it were?

I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to say. Then again, I don’t understand the problem with translating the phrase as it is written in the Latin. “No one but Death (will part us)” makes perfect sense in English, so why not leave it in the literal translation?
 
GorgerCracker said:
:confused: Why on earth would this be in a medical text? And why would you translate it less literally if it were?

I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to say. Then again, I don’t understand the problem with translating the phrase as it is written in the Latin. “No one but Death (will part us)” makes perfect sense in English, so why not leave it in the literal translation?
Click to expand...
Yep, I’m not sure I get why it’s hard to accept that the literal translation was in fact the intended meaning of the thing. After all, whoever coined it chose nemo instead of the more obvious choice of nihil. They must have done so because they liked or wanted to say no one, and it makes the most sense to translate it with no one as the intended meaning if you want to be true to the original writer’s tastes.

That’s how I see it anyway. But maybe only us Latin students care what the words actually mean. 👍
 
Instead of all this depressing talk about only death doing you part, why not my more neutral and simple personal motto, ‘Deo Juvante’, Latin for ‘With gods help’, I can’t think of a more simple, and elegant phrase.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top