1) Bloods, quoting from Jacob Wackernagel, Lectures on Syntax:
In the earliest period, Christian texts in Latin are almost exclusively translations from Greek texts, translations, moreover, which were made not by the intellectual elite but by simple people of limited education and learning, for whom the wording of the original was surrounded by a sacred halo. As a result, when they produced versions of holy texts, they committed gross infringements of the rules of their own language. For example, in an old translation of the New Testament, which is known in fragments—i.e., not in the Vulgate—we read at Mark 4:11 omnia dicitur, ‘all things (pl.) is said (sg.)’. In Latin it is a glaring solecism to use a singular verb with a plural subject. This is explained by the fact that the Greek original has πάντα γίγνεται ‘everything (pl.) comes to pass (sg.)’, with the familiar Greek construction (neuter plural subject with singular verb; cf. I, 101–3 below). Similarly, in the so-called Clementina, Greek participles in the genitive absolute are rendered with genitives in the Latin, e.g. §43 contendentium tribuum, ‘while the tribes were disputing’. Or again, in just the same way it can happen that in texts of the Bible even Hebraisms enter Latin. Several times in the Old Testament we have the expression ἀνὴρ αἱμάτων (lit. ‘man of bloods (pl.)’: 2 Kings 16:7, 8; Psalms 5:7, 25:9, etc.; Proverbs 29:10). From a Greek point of view the descriptive genitive is anomalous and so, too, is the plural, ‘bloods’ (αἵματα occurs only in poetry). Both features are conditioned by the Hebrew original, and accordingly the phrase used in the Latin text is uir sanguinum. This is particularly striking because sanguis in Latin has otherwise no plural at all; the grammarians, who take no notice of Christian Latin, make this an explicit rule (Servius on Aen. 4.687; Priscian 5.54 = GL II, 175).
Even though I studied Latin before Greek, I took to the latter so avidly that I have been known to make the same error of using “the familiar Greek construction (neuter plural subject with singular verb)” in Latin.
2) Professors and Clods, quoting Andrew T. Weil, “Joshua Whatmough,” Harvard Crimson (May 3, 1963):
To observe the forms of his eccentricity one might listen to him lecture in Linguistics 100 (“Language”), impressively described in the catalogue of courses as dealing with such topics as the “Theory of Communication,” “Language and the Nature of Man,” “Language and Literature,” and so forth. Actually, when Professor Whatmough lectures in Linguistics 100, he dispenses with these problems in thirty minutes. The rest of the hour gives him a chance to hold forth on everything that he feels needs speaking out against. He does this in the most elegantly precise English to be heard in Cambridge and often illustrates his points with Latin or Greek quotations which he clearly expects his listeners to understand. His manner of delivery varies with his subject. He can be quietly incisive (“A professor should be a person, not a clod. The whole system of Ph.D.’s in certain fields tends to turn professors into clods. I do not have a Ph.D.”) or, if the situation demands, violently destructive (“Linguistics has much to offer psychology; psychology has nothing to offer linguistics. And that nothing is wrong.”) Certain issues (whether anyone has the right to control what professors say in classes, for one) turn him purple with rage — invariably an awesome transformation. And when it is all over, Whatmough smiles, adjusts his cornflower, takes up his walking stick and leaves the lecture room contented.
A poignant (is that the right word?) sentence from the full 1963 profile of Prof. Whatmough: “His relentless emphasis on statistical method in the analysis of language has enabled this department to pioneer the new mathematical approach to language that now promises to bring order into the thoroughly confirmed [sic] field of linguistics.”
More quotes from the Crimson:
Sadly, “it” is the last word on the webpage; I wish they’d post the entire thing.(Quote fixed thanks to jdmartinsen’s comment below.)Alas, there appears to be no way to see him in action; YouTube has only Whatmough Lecture videos.
nam omnes novimus latine non dici sanguines, nec sanguina
Omnes novimus illud. Non sumus barbari. Quasi!
What I don’t understand is why the sacred halo protected γίγνεται from being pluralized in translation, but didn’t keep it from turning into an altogether different word dicitur.
Tempora moresque caeteraque.
Oh, that’s a pity. A lot more people should study Aleut!
That actually looks to me like no sacred halo was involved, and the translator was a native speaker of Greek whose Latin grammar was… not quite barbarous enough, actually.
Two things:
Surely γίνεται, not γίγνεται, unless Mark was doing an impression of a 5th-century Athenian.
This is easy to explain. The Latin translator was working from a Greek text, like the Codex Bezae in Cambridge, that read πάντα λέγεται instead of πάντα γίνεται in Mark 4:11:
https://greeknewtestament.net/mk4-11
A layout error in the Crimson obit apparently moved the last line of the quote to the end of the subsequent paragraph: “But I think with my constitution, it would finish the horse.”
Thanks — I’ve emended my comment accordingly.
The Latin translator was working from a Greek text, like the Codex Bezae in Cambridge, that read πάντα λέγεται instead of πάντα γίνεται
MEL, thank you for that comment! I was wondering what was going on with dicitur for γίνεται and you’ve handily provided the answer.