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Otium


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2022 Aug 23, 10:55am   1,710 views  28 comments

by Patrick   ➕follow (55)   💰tip   ignore  

I started reading my aunt's high school Latin textbook, and ran across the word "otium". At first I thought it was related to "odium", but it's not. Otium a great Roman concept of using one's time after a career to enjoy life and to study.


Otium, a Latin abstract term, has a variety of meanings, including leisure time in which a person can enjoy eating, playing, relaxing, contemplation and academic endeavors. It sometimes, but not always, relates to a time in a person's retirement after previous service to the public or private sector, opposing "active public life". Otium can be a temporary time of leisure, that is sporadic. It can have intellectual, virtuous or immoral implications. It originally had the idea of withdrawing from one's daily business (neg-otium) or affairs to engage in activities that were considered to be artistically valuable or enlightening (i.e. speaking, writing, philosophy). It had particular meaning to businessmen, diplomats, philosophers and poets.


I like this term because it's pretty much what I'm doing at the moment.

And it's fun that business and pleasure are negotium ("not otium") and otium.

Comments 1 - 28 of 28        Search these comments

1   Ceffer   2022 Aug 23, 11:21am  

I talked with an older friend. He said this last three years have been the most unpleasant of his life mentally due to the Globalist assault, and he is relatively immune due to financial independence.

I guess it's not as bad as trying to live through an actual shooting war, but I think otium presumes a relatively peaceful and settled society.
2   NuttBoxer   2022 Aug 23, 3:52pm  

I like that it can be sporadic. We should all engage in otium throughout our lives.
3   Patrick   2022 Aug 23, 4:18pm  

Added photo of Aunt Millie's Latin textbook.

It's a really good book, pretty intense and has lots of stories in Latin.
4   Patrick   2022 Oct 19, 11:11pm  

Lol, I just learned that preposterous is Latin for ass-backwards:

From Latin praeposterus (“with the hinder part before, reversed, inverted, perverted”), from prae (“before”) + posterus (“coming after”).
5   clambo   2022 Oct 20, 7:57am  

I have a couple of old books also which have many examples of the derivations of words we use in English.
English is the most interesting language with words of Celtic, Roman, and Germanic derivation added together.
The Celtic words are much less common.

I tease my Mexican friends; "I hope so"="Ojala"=Arabic="if Allah wishes" I tell them deep down they're a bunch of muslims.
6   Tenpoundbass   2022 Oct 20, 8:09am  

Patrick says

Lol, I just learned that preposterous is Latin for ass-backwards:


I always wondered where "Half assed" came from. It was my father's favorite critique.
7   Patrick   2022 Oct 20, 10:55am  

clambo says

English is the most interesting language with words of Celtic, Roman, and Germanic derivation added together.
The Celtic words are much less common.


I've gotten quite addicted to looking up word origins on https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Main_Page Seems to have avoided infection with wokeness so far.

I studied Irish Gaelic for a few years. English proper doesn't have many words of Celtic origin, but American English has maybe 100 common slang words which are from Irish, like jiffy, which is just Irish for "hurry", or to "whale" on someone, which is just a bad pronunciation of "bhual", meaning "to hit".
8   Patrick   2022 Oct 20, 10:57am  

Also fun: "interest" is from Latin inter + est, to be between, meaning "a difference". Not exactly sure how the present meanings are derived from that though.
9   Undoctored   2022 Oct 20, 5:29pm  

Point of interest = the difference something has from the other ones like it, making it special, or “interesting”

Interest on a loan = the difference between what you borrow and what you pay back
10   Patrick   2022 Nov 19, 5:07pm  

One translation assignment from my deliciously incorrect Latin textbook printed in 1933:

Lacrimae interdum appellatae sunt arma feminarum.

Tears are sometimes called the weapons of women.
11   ElYorsh   2022 Nov 19, 6:30pm  

clambo says



I tease my Mexican friends; "I hope so"="Ojala"=Arabic="if Allah wishes" I tell them deep down they're a bunch of muslims.

I've had fun with this one throughout the years. My grandfathers from both sides owned a lot of old books that were handed down to a few grandkids.
12   Patrick   2022 Dec 6, 7:10pm  

Found a good etymology today:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-monium#Latin
Forms collective nouns and nouns designating legal status or obligation from other nouns.
pater (“father”) → patrimōnium (“inheritance”)
māter (“mother”) → mātrimōnium (“marriage”)

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/matrimony
From Old French matremoine, from Latin mātrimōnium (“marriage, wedlock”), from māter (“mother”) + -mōnium (“obligation”).

So marriage is a man's obligation to the mother of his children, but an inheritance is a man's legal obligation to the children.

In both cases, it is the man who is obligated, not the women or children.
13   Patrick   2022 Dec 8, 5:20pm  

I've noticed that most of the stories in this Latin textbook are about Roman civic virtue.

- Horatius telling the other soldiers to destroy the bridge to Rome behind him in a suicide mission while he and a few others held off the Etruscans.
- Young Mucius Scaevola attempting to personally kill the king of the Etruscans to save Rome from invasion.
- Mettus Curtius sacrificing himself to the gods to save Rome.
- Coriolanus turning against Rome, but then deciding he will always be a Roman and living in exile instead of actually invading Rome.
- Fabricus demonstrating to King Pyrrhus that he could not be bribed or terrified into betraying Rome.
- Captured consul Regulus refusing to be part of a prisoner swap with the Carthaginians, and so being tortured to death.

I think we should bring back such textbooks to teach loyalty to America the way the early Romans were loyal to Rome.

Many of the heroes of early Rome were also famous for their modest lifestyle and not pursuing wealth as a goal in itself. Of course later Rome was quite fucked up, with Romans living for luxury and decadent pleasures as the Roman Empire became more and more multicultural and less Roman.
14   AmericanKulak   2022 Dec 8, 6:11pm  

Patrick says

Many of the heroes of early Rome were also famous for their modest lifestyle and not pursuing wealth as a goal in itself. Of course later Rome was quite fucked up, with Romans living for luxury and decadent pleasures as the Roman Empire became more and more multicultural and less Roman.

Imported huge numbers of Slaves and Women were given more personal freedom.
15   AmericanKulak   2022 Dec 8, 6:23pm  

@Patrick, you must read "Dynasty" by Tom Holland. You'll be stunned at the decadence that took over the Claudians and Rome.
16   HeadSet   2022 Dec 9, 7:15am  

Patrick says

Found a good etymology today:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-monium#Latin
Forms collective nouns and nouns designating legal status or obligation from other nouns.
pater (“father”) → patrimōnium (“inheritance”)
māter (“mother”) → mātrimōnium (“marriage”)

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/matrimony
From Old French matremoine, from Latin mātrimōnium (“marriage, wedlock”), from māter (“mother”) + -mōnium (“obligation”).

So marriage is a man's obligation to the mother of his children, but an inheritance is a man's legal obligation to the children.

In both cases, it is the man who is obligated, not the women or children.

Interesting. I noticed that "monium" also seems to be the root for the "mony" in "alimony." I wonder what the "al" means.
17   Misc   2022 Dec 9, 7:33am  

'al' means "ALL"
18   HeadSet   2022 Dec 9, 8:49am  

Misc says

'al' means "ALL"

As in "all" your money?
19   Patrick   2022 Dec 9, 10:06am  

HeadSet says

Interesting. I noticed that "monium" also seems to be the root for the "mony" in "alimony." I wonder what the "al" means.


@HeadSet

Seems to be the obligation to feed an ex-wife:

From alō (“I nourish”, or a related adjectival root) +‎ -mōnia.
20   HeadSet   2022 Dec 9, 10:48am  

Patrick says

Seems to be the obligation to feed an ex-wife:

Then maybe the exwife needs to be subject to caputimony.
21   AmericanKulak   2022 Dec 23, 4:12pm  

Omnibus is apparently Latin for "Fuck You, Peasants!"
22   Patrick   2022 Dec 23, 9:09pm  

This is all ominously similar to the end of the Roman Republic imho.
23   Patrick   2023 Mar 9, 3:33pm  

I finally finished my aunt's Latin textbook, the one in the original post above.

My knowledge of Latin is far better now.
24   HeadSet   2023 Mar 9, 5:11pm  

Patrick says

My knowledge of Latin is far better now.

Crucifige Fauci.
25   Patrick   2023 Mar 9, 5:16pm  

"Crucifige: second-person singular present active imperative of crucifīgō"

Hey, that's good Latin!

But I wouldn't crucify him as that would make him too much like Jesus, when he's really just a sleazy manipulative criminal like Goebbels. Hanging is appropriate for his crimes of:

1. creating Wuhan Virus in Wuhan by funding Peter Daszak, resulting in millions of deaths among the very elderly and the obese
2. lying to the world to get them to take the dangerous and ineffective toxxine, resulting in millions more deaths
26   HeadSet   2023 Mar 9, 5:58pm  

Patrick says

But I wouldn't crucify him as that would make him too much like Jesus

Decimare NIH.
Damnatio ad Bestias Pfizer

Pay per view on the Pfizer.
27   Patrick   2023 Mar 9, 7:08pm  

NIH et Pfizero delenda sunt.

I assume the -o at the end is required for dative or ablative. Not sure.
28   HeadSet   2023 Mar 9, 8:25pm  

It would be ablative if you personally were the one doing the "deleting" (destroying), I think.

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