Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2018 February 5

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February 5

Help writing dirty Latin

SCHOLARES ET LECTORI SALVTEM,

I've just barely started learning Latin, so I'm finding it hard to do this on my own. I'd like to write a fancy-sounding Latin phrase that would look good carved into stone, but actually means something vulgar--and includes a word declined/conjugated as "venti," "ventis," "ventus," "ventiri," or something along those lines. The foremost two examples would be most highly prized, as this would be wordplay on the surname of somebody I know. In my dictionary it looks quite promising, as there are words that start with vent- which mean "coming" (was this ever used in the sexual sense in classical Latin?) and "flatulence" and "gluttony."

A variation on veni, vidi, vici would be obvious, though not a bad idea.

"I came, was gluttonous, and broke wind" "Vocare ex (something)" "I farted and came at the same time" or "I came so hard I farted" "Even the noblest (man) farts" "The finest food also becomes wind"

Something along these lines, that has a nice prosody to it. It could be almost anything, really.

Bonus points if it could be ambiguously interpreted as both noble-sounding and naughty. "Coming" and "wind" could be either.

And beside all this, a link to vulgar phrases actually used in classical antiquity would be helpful too.

Gratias! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:1C1:8100:900:8CA:15B1:ADFB:DF14 (talk) 00:02, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

While you're waiting for a classicist to answer, take a look at Latin Profanity: How to Swear in Latin. Alansplodge (talk) 00:10, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Catullus and Martial are your go-to guys. Lesbia...nunc in quadriviis et antiportis glubit magnanimi Remi nepotes. Figuratviely... - Lesbia, now on the street corners and back alleys, sucks off the noble sons of Rome." Mentula tam magna est, tantus tibi, Papyle, nasus ut possis, quotiens arrigis, olfacere : Your dick is so massive, Papyle, and your nose so huge, that when you have a hard-on you can smell it. - But you should also check out the collections of street graffiti. - Nunh-huh 00:34, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

We also have a Latin profanity article, and the book The Latin Sexual Vocabulary by James N. Adams has a lot of great stuff in it, if you can find it (I believe you can see at least some of it on Google Books). Adam Bishop (talk) 01:21, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

The pronunciations

English: Should we transcribe it ​/əˈdɪl ʃəˈmæzdɪn/?

French: Is it ​[kalvin ɛməʁi] or [- eməʁi]? LoveVanPersie (talk) 14:27, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Adil is /əˈdiːl/, but I don't know about the surname. It's either /ʃəˈmæzɪn/ or /ʃəˈmæzdɪn/. Mr KEBAB (talk) 18:32, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

The surname is /ʃəˈmæzɪn/. Omidinist (talk) 04:22, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

What are scruggins?

Resolved

 – Delicious lardy bits!

In Farmhouse Fare: Recipes from Country Housewives collected by The Farmers Weekly, New & Enlarged (Third) edition, 1946, there is a recipe for "Scruggins cake". It is from Monmouthshire, and the ingredients are 1lb SR flour, 1/2 lb granulated sugar, 3/4 lb chopped scruggins, and milk and water for mixing. I would like to know what scruggins are. Neither the OED nor Geoffrey Grigson's The Englishman's Flora are able to help. I have seen several requests on a variety of internet fora for the same information, and by far the most convincing suggestion is that they are crab apples. The other common suggestion is the scraps left over after rendering down the lard. DuncanHill (talk) 14:43, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Most things thrown up in Google seem to be guesses, when readers have tried to answer a similar question - giving wildly contradictory results. This [1] from the National Museum of Wales perhaps has a bit more credibility, and comes down in favour of the fatty bits left after rendering the bacon for lard. Wymspen (talk) 15:08, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

I just found that too! DuncanHill (talk) 15:11, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

I have the 1973 edition of this book, which says in italics under the name "Scruggins cake": "Scruggins are the small pieces of fat left after the flair of a pig has been melted down." Would someone like to stick the "Resolved" tag on here? --TammyMoet (talk) 15:26, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Splendid, thank you Tammy :) DuncanHill (talk) 15:34, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

I assume "flair" is "flare":

the cheapest stuff on the market is something called flare fat. This is the highly saturated fat that collects around the vital organs of the pig such as the kidneys. It was traditionally rendered into lard because you couldn't put it into sausages without it running straight back out again when they were cooked. It also clogs up your arteries. But now food scientisits are developing ways to make it hard so it doesn't ooze out.

From a 2003 Guardian story by Felicity Lawrence "Sausage Factory". Carbon Caryatid (talk) 19:02, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

For a radically different view of flare, see Praise the Lard from the Independent in 2012. As our article Lard points out, lard has a significantly lower saturated fat content than butter. DuncanHill (talk) 19:11, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

It's probably unrelated, but the OED has scroggin, an Australian/NZ word for 'A nourishing snack of raisins, chocolate, nuts, etc., eaten esp. by travellers' (etymology unknown). AndrewWTaylor (talk) 16:08, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

See Trail mix. Scroggin is thought to derive from the initial letters of the ingredients, sultanas, carob or chocolate, raisins, and others. Akld guy (talk) 20:30, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

Princess Holiday

Would anybody have an idea of a translation for "Korogaru Ringotei Senya Ichiya"/"転がるりんご亭千夜一夜", in the context of the subtitle for the above linked game?--Jac16888 ^Talk 21:43, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

I don't know Japanese... But Chinese is close to Japanese. In (Simplified) Chinese it's "回转苹果亭的一千零一夜", meaning "(the) thousand and one nights of rolling Apple Pavilion". LoveVanPersie (talk) 06:51, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

What is snuffy?

In our article Mike Mansfield we read "This gentleman went from snuffy to national and international prominence." What does "snuffy" mean? DuncanHill (talk) 23:53, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

see meaning 5. A grunt. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:57, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

See also Private Snuffy Smith, although I don't know if the slang came before the movie or vice versa. --Floquenbeam (talk) 23:59, 5 February 2018 (UTC)

I think I went too far guessing the etymology here; I think Snuffy Smith and the "grunt" meaning are unrelated (or not cleanly related). Google says "Private Joe Snuffy" is the most common reference. --Floquenbeam (talk) 00:51, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. We could really do with a better source than Urban Dictionary to use for clarification in the Mike Mansfield article. DuncanHill (talk) 19:42, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

I spent quite a while on the night of the 5th looking for one, and ultimately couldn't find a true reliable source. I found enough unreliable sources (multiple military blogs) to be positive that this is what is meant. Not sure how kosher it is to explain the word in a footnote without a reference. --Floquenbeam (talk) 19:48, 12 February 2018 (UTC)

I know what you mean - I'm sure that you're right, but reluctant to add it to the article without a proper reference. DuncanHill (talk) 19:51, 12 February 2018 (UTC)