Vague Exactitude








Filed under Articles

4 responses to “Vague Exactitude

  1. From your third paragraph, it seems the word for which you’re still seeking a cognate is “cujusque.” That Latin word consists of “cujus” (more commonly spelled “cuius”), which is the genitive form of the relative pronoun “qui, quae, quod” (meaning “who,” “which,” or “that”), to which “-que” (a suffix, or technically an enclitic, meaning “and”) has been appended. The genitive form “cujus” means “whose” or “of which,” so the combined version “cujusque” means “and whose.”

    When you consider the base word “cujus” in its nominative forms of “qui” (masculine), “quae” (feminine), and “quod” (neuter), it has cognates in all the Romance languages you mentioned, most recognizably in its masculine form. “Qui” means “who” in French, exactly as it does in Latin, and the French “que” meaning “what” or “that” is likewise derived from the Latin. This Latin word was also the origin of the Spanish “qué” (“what”) and “que” (“that”), as well as the Italian “che” (“what” or “that”).

    Despite appearances, all of those are descended from the “cujus” part of “cujusque,” not the “-que” part. I don’t think any Romance language uses a related word or enclitic to mean “and,” so that portion might not have a Romance cognate. To present-day readers, the most familiar uses of this “-que” would be in “Arma virumque cano” (“Arms and the man I sing,” the opening words of the Aeneid) and “Senatus Populusque Romanus” (“The Roman Senate and People,” a Latin phrase often abbreviated SPQR).

    As for the main theme of your blog post, namely the frequency with which people comment on online articles they seem to have merely skimmed, I agree that this is all too common. I hope I haven’t provided an additional example.

    • Thank you for your reply! Last night my husband was sitting in bed and reading this article and told me a short version of your answer, in German, “und dessen” which is “and whose”, so good confirmation! 🙂
      Any information on “vocato”?

      • Well, if your goal is to understand the overall quotation, it essentially means, “The beginning of the month is called the calends.” As for “vocato” in particular, it means “called” because it’s the neuter ablative of the fourth principal part of the verb “to call”: “voco, vocare, vocavi, vocatus.” If you’re interested in its cognates, it has quite a few, not only in the Romance languages but also in English; nearly every English word containing “voc-” or “vok-” is derived from this Latin verb, such as “invoke,” “convocation,” and “vocational.”

      • Thank you for the thorough information! I find etymological connections fascinating! I figured that “vocato” must be related to words like “vocal” or “vocalize” but wasn’t sure of the exact connection; now I know! 🙂

Leave a Reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Google+ photo


Connecting to %s