How do I say “this must not happen”? Planned maintenance scheduled April 23, 2019 at 23:30 UTC (7:30pm US/Eastern) Announcing the arrival of Valued Associate #679: Cesar Manara Unicorn Meta Zoo #1: Why another podcast?Are there examples of passive imperative forms of non-deponent verbs in ancient literature?When can the gerund take an object?How to emphasize adjectives?Is the complement of esse in nominative or accusative when esse is a subject?Should the phrase “I often saw” use the imperfect or the aorist in Greek?Passives Without AccusativesJenney's Second Year Latin, Lesson 12, exercise E: Ut clauses and how to translate English infinitivesMisquoting Linnaeus or correcting him?Passive periphrastic with two dativesExpressing English modalities of advice in LatinHow can you tell whether prefixed ‘in-’ is the preposition ‘in’ or Indo-European ‘in-’?
As a dual citizen, my US passport will expire one day after traveling to the US. Will this work?
Does a random sequence of vectors span a Hilbert space?
Does the main washing effect of soap come from foam?
"Destructive power" carried by a B-52?
Why are current probes so expensive?
Did any compiler fully use 80-bit floating point?
Is this Half-dragon Quaggoth boss monster balanced?
newbie Q : How to read an output file in one command line
Short story about astronauts fertilizing soil with their own bodies
Can gravitational waves pass through a black hole?
How much damage would a cupful of neutron star matter do to the Earth?
Random body shuffle every night—can we still function?
How to resize main filesystem
Why do C and C++ allow the expression (int) + 4*5;
Is it OK to use the testing sample to compare algorithms?
Find general formula for the terms
Why does BitLocker not use RSA?
How do you write "wild blueberries flavored"?
Why is there so little support for joining EFTA in the British parliament?
Inverse square law not accurate for non-point masses?
3D Masyu - A Die
Problem with display of presentation
How to achieve cat-like agility?
Sally's older brother
How do I say “this must not happen”?
Planned maintenance scheduled April 23, 2019 at 23:30 UTC (7:30pm US/Eastern)
Announcing the arrival of Valued Associate #679: Cesar Manara
Unicorn Meta Zoo #1: Why another podcast?Are there examples of passive imperative forms of non-deponent verbs in ancient literature?When can the gerund take an object?How to emphasize adjectives?Is the complement of esse in nominative or accusative when esse is a subject?Should the phrase “I often saw” use the imperfect or the aorist in Greek?Passives Without AccusativesJenney's Second Year Latin, Lesson 12, exercise E: Ut clauses and how to translate English infinitivesMisquoting Linnaeus or correcting him?Passive periphrastic with two dativesExpressing English modalities of advice in LatinHow can you tell whether prefixed ‘in-’ is the preposition ‘in’ or Indo-European ‘in-’?
I'm used to translating English auxiliary "must" with a Latin gerundive: hic necandus est "this man must be killed".
But what if I want to say "this man must not be killed"? I would read non necandus est as "it's not necessary to kill him", which is a somewhat different meaning (it's ambivalent about whether he should be killed or not).
grammar-choice gerundivum negation
asked 4 hours ago
DraconisDraconis
18.8k22676
add a comment |
I'm used to translating English auxiliary "must" with a Latin gerundive: hic necandus est "this man must be killed".
But what if I want to say "this man must not be killed"? I would read non necandus est as "it's not necessary to kill him", which is a somewhat different meaning (it's ambivalent about whether he should be killed or not).
grammar-choice gerundivum negation
asked 4 hours ago
DraconisDraconis
18.8k22676
1
@JoonasIlmavirta You're absolutely right, it's short! Edited.
– Draconis
2 hours ago
add a comment |
I'm used to translating English auxiliary "must" with a Latin gerundive: hic necandus est "this man must be killed".
But what if I want to say "this man must not be killed"? I would read non necandus est as "it's not necessary to kill him", which is a somewhat different meaning (it's ambivalent about whether he should be killed or not).
grammar-choice gerundivum negation
asked 4 hours ago
DraconisDraconis
18.8k22676
I'm used to translating English auxiliary "must" with a Latin gerundive: hic necandus est "this man must be killed".
But what if I want to say "this man must not be killed"? I would read non necandus est as "it's not necessary to kill him", which is a somewhat different meaning (it's ambivalent about whether he should be killed or not).
grammar-choice gerundivum negation
grammar-choice gerundivum negation
asked 4 hours ago
DraconisDraconis
18.8k22676
asked 4 hours ago
DraconisDraconis
18.8k22676
edited 2 hours ago
Draconis
asked 4 hours ago
DraconisDraconis
18.8k22676
asked 4 hours ago
DraconisDraconis
18.8k22676
asked 4 hours ago
DraconisDraconis
18.8k22676
18.8k22676
1
@JoonasIlmavirta You're absolutely right, it's short! Edited.
– Draconis
2 hours ago
add a comment |
1
@JoonasIlmavirta You're absolutely right, it's short! Edited.
– Draconis
2 hours ago
1
1
@JoonasIlmavirta You're absolutely right, it's short! Edited.
– Draconis
2 hours ago
@JoonasIlmavirta You're absolutely right, it's short! Edited.
– Draconis
2 hours ago
add a comment |
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
In my experience many languages confuse lack of desire and desire of the contrary.
For example, I would like to be able to say "I don't want coffee" as the negation of "I want coffee", meaning that I don't have a desire to have coffee.
To say that I am actively against drinking coffee, I would prefer to say "I want not to have coffee".
But, unfortunately, English doesn't work this way, and "I don't want coffee" is construed as "I want not to have coffee" instead of the more ambivalent reading.
Similarly, the Latin non necandus est is more literally "it is not necessary to kill him" but could also be read as "it is necessary not to kill him".
I found examples of similar constructions, but it is not easy to decide which meaning is intended in each case.
I would consider both readings valid in general.
I see a couple of ways to express "it is necessary to not kill him" without ambiguity:
- Take a new verb with the opposite meaning: servandus est
- Explain in more words: necesse est eum non necare
- Work it into the structure of a sentence: curemus ne necetur
- In some cases you might be able to use a negative order: noli(te) eum necare
(There are also passive imperatives.)
answered 2 hours ago
Joonas Ilmavirta♦Joonas Ilmavirta
49.3k1271288
add a comment |
Your Answer
StackExchange.ready(function()
var channelOptions =
tags: "".split(" "),
id: "644"
;
initTagRenderer("".split(" "), "".split(" "), channelOptions);
StackExchange.using("externalEditor", function()
// Have to fire editor after snippets, if snippets enabled
if (StackExchange.settings.snippets.snippetsEnabled)
StackExchange.using("snippets", function()
createEditor();
);
else
createEditor();
);
function createEditor()
StackExchange.prepareEditor(
heartbeatType: 'answer',
autoActivateHeartbeat: false,
convertImagesToLinks: false,
noModals: true,
showLowRepImageUploadWarning: true,
reputationToPostImages: null,
bindNavPrevention: true,
postfix: "",
imageUploader:
brandingHtml: "Powered by u003ca class="icon-imgur-white" href="https://imgur.com/"u003eu003c/au003e",
contentPolicyHtml: "User contributions licensed under u003ca href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"u003ecc by-sa 3.0 with attribution requiredu003c/au003e u003ca href="https://stackoverflow.com/legal/content-policy"u003e(content policy)u003c/au003e",
allowUrls: true
,
noCode: true, onDemand: true,
discardSelector: ".discard-answer"
,immediatelyShowMarkdownHelp:true
);
);
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
StackExchange.ready(
function ()
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2flatin.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f9526%2fhow-do-i-say-this-must-not-happen%23new-answer', 'question_page');
);
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
1 Answer
1
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
In my experience many languages confuse lack of desire and desire of the contrary.
For example, I would like to be able to say "I don't want coffee" as the negation of "I want coffee", meaning that I don't have a desire to have coffee.
To say that I am actively against drinking coffee, I would prefer to say "I want not to have coffee".
But, unfortunately, English doesn't work this way, and "I don't want coffee" is construed as "I want not to have coffee" instead of the more ambivalent reading.
Similarly, the Latin non necandus est is more literally "it is not necessary to kill him" but could also be read as "it is necessary not to kill him".
I found examples of similar constructions, but it is not easy to decide which meaning is intended in each case.
I would consider both readings valid in general.
I see a couple of ways to express "it is necessary to not kill him" without ambiguity:
- Take a new verb with the opposite meaning: servandus est
- Explain in more words: necesse est eum non necare
- Work it into the structure of a sentence: curemus ne necetur
- In some cases you might be able to use a negative order: noli(te) eum necare
(There are also passive imperatives.)
answered 2 hours ago
Joonas Ilmavirta♦Joonas Ilmavirta
49.3k1271288
add a comment |
In my experience many languages confuse lack of desire and desire of the contrary.
For example, I would like to be able to say "I don't want coffee" as the negation of "I want coffee", meaning that I don't have a desire to have coffee.
To say that I am actively against drinking coffee, I would prefer to say "I want not to have coffee".
But, unfortunately, English doesn't work this way, and "I don't want coffee" is construed as "I want not to have coffee" instead of the more ambivalent reading.
Similarly, the Latin non necandus est is more literally "it is not necessary to kill him" but could also be read as "it is necessary not to kill him".
I found examples of similar constructions, but it is not easy to decide which meaning is intended in each case.
I would consider both readings valid in general.
I see a couple of ways to express "it is necessary to not kill him" without ambiguity:
- Take a new verb with the opposite meaning: servandus est
- Explain in more words: necesse est eum non necare
- Work it into the structure of a sentence: curemus ne necetur
- In some cases you might be able to use a negative order: noli(te) eum necare
(There are also passive imperatives.)
answered 2 hours ago
Joonas Ilmavirta♦Joonas Ilmavirta
49.3k1271288
add a comment |
In my experience many languages confuse lack of desire and desire of the contrary.
For example, I would like to be able to say "I don't want coffee" as the negation of "I want coffee", meaning that I don't have a desire to have coffee.
To say that I am actively against drinking coffee, I would prefer to say "I want not to have coffee".
But, unfortunately, English doesn't work this way, and "I don't want coffee" is construed as "I want not to have coffee" instead of the more ambivalent reading.
Similarly, the Latin non necandus est is more literally "it is not necessary to kill him" but could also be read as "it is necessary not to kill him".
I found examples of similar constructions, but it is not easy to decide which meaning is intended in each case.
I would consider both readings valid in general.
I see a couple of ways to express "it is necessary to not kill him" without ambiguity:
- Take a new verb with the opposite meaning: servandus est
- Explain in more words: necesse est eum non necare
- Work it into the structure of a sentence: curemus ne necetur
- In some cases you might be able to use a negative order: noli(te) eum necare
(There are also passive imperatives.)
answered 2 hours ago
Joonas Ilmavirta♦Joonas Ilmavirta
49.3k1271288
In my experience many languages confuse lack of desire and desire of the contrary.
For example, I would like to be able to say "I don't want coffee" as the negation of "I want coffee", meaning that I don't have a desire to have coffee.
To say that I am actively against drinking coffee, I would prefer to say "I want not to have coffee".
But, unfortunately, English doesn't work this way, and "I don't want coffee" is construed as "I want not to have coffee" instead of the more ambivalent reading.
Similarly, the Latin non necandus est is more literally "it is not necessary to kill him" but could also be read as "it is necessary not to kill him".
I found examples of similar constructions, but it is not easy to decide which meaning is intended in each case.
I would consider both readings valid in general.
I see a couple of ways to express "it is necessary to not kill him" without ambiguity:
- Take a new verb with the opposite meaning: servandus est
- Explain in more words: necesse est eum non necare
- Work it into the structure of a sentence: curemus ne necetur
- In some cases you might be able to use a negative order: noli(te) eum necare
(There are also passive imperatives.)
answered 2 hours ago
Joonas Ilmavirta♦Joonas Ilmavirta
49.3k1271288
edited 2 hours ago
answered 2 hours ago
Joonas Ilmavirta♦Joonas Ilmavirta
49.3k1271288
answered 2 hours ago
Joonas Ilmavirta♦Joonas Ilmavirta
49.3k1271288
answered 2 hours ago
Joonas Ilmavirta♦Joonas Ilmavirta
49.3k1271288
49.3k1271288
add a comment |
add a comment |
Thanks for contributing an answer to Latin Language Stack Exchange!
- Please be sure to answer the question. Provide details and share your research!
But avoid …
- Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers.
- Making statements based on opinion; back them up with references or personal experience.
To learn more, see our tips on writing great answers.
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
StackExchange.ready(
function ()
StackExchange.openid.initPostLogin('.new-post-login', 'https%3a%2f%2flatin.stackexchange.com%2fquestions%2f9526%2fhow-do-i-say-this-must-not-happen%23new-answer', 'question_page');
);
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Sign up or log in
StackExchange.ready(function ()
StackExchange.helpers.onClickDraftSave('#login-link');
);
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Sign up using Google
Sign up using Facebook
Sign up using Email and Password
Post as a guest
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
Required, but never shown
1
@JoonasIlmavirta You're absolutely right, it's short! Edited.
– Draconis
2 hours ago