From: David L. Sigsbee
To: Wayne
Cc: ipcrc@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2005 8:16 AM
Subject: Re: PC800: Lemmings non sumus?


Since PC800 owner Harry from Montana uses the phrase "lemmings non sumus" in
email signature to this group, I presume this is a PC800 related topic.

I have a Ph.D. in Classical Greek and Latin (AKA Classical Studies) and as
with all classicists, my professional obligation is "to strive to be error free
and to identify error in others." How's that for pompous and obfuscating?
Professional chest thumping aside, let's look at the quote.

Lemmings are small rodent like animals of either of the genus lemmus or the
genus dicrostonyx. The plural nominative case ending (i.e., the
subject/predicate nominative case ending for lemmus) is lemmi. The plural
nominative of dicrostonyx is dicrostonyches.

Lemmings is the English plural of the word lemming, and it comes from lemmus,
which appears to be a Late Latin word that refers to these animals.

Dicrostonyx appears to be made of of the Greek elements dicr- "forked," "ost-"
bone, and "-onyx" claw. So the latter term is something about a
"forked bone claw" animal, which makes no apparent sense to me, but then I
have never seen a lemming of the genus dicrostonyx or any other genus for that
matter. [Many scientific words don't make sense unless you were there when they
were created. As a good example of this, consider "mastodon." Etymologically
it means breast (mast) and tooth (odon). Doesn't sound much like a big, hairy
elephant kind of
creature. Apparently, it was originally named for a nipple like projection
on the teeth.]

Now what is grammatically correct? Hmmm. What language, what grammar, and
who says so? Without getting off onto flights of imagination about what
correctness is, I would say the following"

"Lemmi non sumus" = "We are not lemmings" is correct Latin.

"Dicrostonyches non sumus" = "We are not lemmings" is also correct Latin,
since the Romans were not averse to using Greek words taken straight into Latin.

The problem with these two versions is that it is fairly unlikely that anyone
will know what you are talking about.

"Lemmings non sumus" is a sentence with a Latin verb (sumus=we are) and Latin
negation (non=not), while the word lemmings is an English word used as a
predicate nominative in a sentence that is otherwise Latin.
But since the Romans were willing to use Greek words in Latin, wouldn't they
also be willing to mix English words into Latin? Probably yes. The closest
contemporary situation is the mixture one encounters with Spanglish, where the
elements of English and Spanish are brought together. So this means "We are not
lemmings" in a language I guess we
could call Latlish.

So, as a somewhat intelligible phrase and a fun thing, "lemmings non sumus" is
really a great statement and most people will figure out what
it is about (if they have any vestigial memory of some high school Latin).

David L. Sigsbee Office: xxx xxx-xxxx
The University of Memphis Home: xxx xxx-xxxx
Classics Section Fax: xxx xxx-xxxx
Foreign Languages and Literatures
Dunn Hall, Memphis, TN, 38152 dsigsbee@memphis.edu375