@ Trent – Thanks for the link and leading the discussion to viz.,

Re.: geekboy’s post —
I’m a bit unsure of what exactly it is you dub ‘newer school of pronunciation’, ‘Classic pronunciation’, and ‘Church Latin’.

The way the papal clergy and the Vatican and Italian churches pronounce Latin is not close to how Classical Latin was pronounced, that’s proven without much hint of doubt. It’s an approximation based on the pronunciation rules governing modern (or pre-modern) Italian.

The pronunciation of v as [w] and of the diphthongs ae, oe as [aɪ, ɔɪ] (to rhyme with ‘eye’, ‘cloy’ in English) is definitely the ‘original’ way, i.e. (pun intended), the inherited pronunciations from pre-Latin stages.

That [aɪ, ɔɪ] were among the first sounds to be changed is well-established fact as well, and that it started among the plebs is undisputed, too (since the highbrows would be more desperate to stay closer to the pronunciation of the corresponding diphthongs in contemporary Greek, which was generally viewed as the language to emulate when possible); but the change still didn’t take place until some time around Caesar’s time, as far as is known, which is quite a bit later than Classical Latin.

And if your teacher claimed that “people around other parts of Italy” spoke “natural Latin”, he was quite simply wrong. At the time of the Roman Citizen (the height of the Roman Empire in its classical period), Latin was still the language/dialect of Rome, and most of Italy only spoke Latin the way a Geordie speak Queen’s English or the way an Alabaman speaks broadcaster American: as a not altogether foreign language/dialect, but not as the local, natural language, either.

Also, if we’re talking about the Classical Latin pronunciation, videlicet would be pronounced [wi'dÉ›:likÉ›t]. Which is hard to squeeze into a regular English sentence, since neither [i] nor [É›:] exist as phonemes in English (unless you happen to be Scottish or from some parts of Australia) and the fully voiced d of Romance languages (Latin included) is equally absent from English. Then again, ‘viz.’ shouldn’t be said as ‘videlicet’, anyway, but as ‘namely’.

Re.: Herve’s post —
“As far as Celeborn goes, I don’t remember him being either Celtic or Roman. From my first reading of the trilogy I’ve thought the name was pronounces ‘Sel-e-born’.”

In a way, he is actually both Celtic and Roman. Quenya and Sindarin, the two Elven languages invented by Tolkien, were (orthographically and partly also grammatically and semantically) based in part on Latin and Welsh, respectively: one Roman language and one Celtic language. And in both Latin and Welsh, c is always pronounced as a velar plosive (the ‘hard c’), never as a sibilant (the ‘soft c’). Tolkien himself specified that c represents the sound [k] in both Quenya and Sindarin, too.

(I’m guessing this comment is about four times as long as any other comment on this page—my apologies for that.)

Surly, on its own, “e.g.” isn’t more grammatically correct that “i.e”. It all depends on the context. You were just using the two incorrectly.

Nevertheless, I have recently reduced my usage of IE and starting using Mozilla Firefox.

There was only one way the USA would lose the 4 x 100 medley relay, i.e., if they are disqualified.

True, on its own, e.g. is not more grammatically correct, but what I said was that I was overusing it, so by using it less, I am now more grammatically correct. I’m sure others are using it incorrectly as well.

1. It substitutes wonderfully for the abbreviations under discussion (viz., both i.e. and e.g.).
2. Generally no one knows what the hell it means, which accomplishes two very important things:
   1. Your logical argument may not be sound, but it at least sounds sound.
   2. People think you are smart, which is the whole reason we use Latin abbreviations anyway.

Though as Mike said, IE is as overused as i.e. on the internet.

Now that I think about it, I say Phil’s is a better translation.

I learn something new every day.