Proverbs/Grammar ~ Grammar/Proverbs: Latin Lesson #204: More -sum- sayings

The focus for today's lesson is more sayings with sum, including one of the most famous Latin sayings of all time: Descartes' Cogito ergo sum. Check it out here in this cartoon by one of my all-time favorite cartoonists, Grant Snider:

And here is the slideshow (with cats) of the words you have seen before:

And here are today's proverbs:

1. Cogito, ergo sum.
I-think, therefore I-am.
CO-gito, ergo sum.

You know all the words in this saying already! And it's so famous that it has its own article at Wikipedia: Cogito ergo sum.

2. Rideo, ergo sum.
I-laugh, therefore I-am.
RI-deo, ergo sum.

And you know all the words in this saying too! This is what the proverb scholar Wolfgang Mieder would call an "anti-proverb," because it is a joke on the very respectable Cogito ergo sum of Descartes. You can read more about antiproverbs at Wikipedia.

3. Sum, ergo bibo; bibo, ergo sum.
I-am, therefore I-drink; I-drink, therefore I-am.
sum, ergo bibo; bibo, ergo sum.

And... you know these words too! This is another antiproverb inspired by Cogito ergo sum, and it features one of my all-time favorite rhetorical devices: chiasmus.

Not surprisingly, this is the name of a bar in Hollywood: Bibo Ergo Sum.

4. Oneratus sum magis quam honoratus.
I-am burdened more than honored.
one-RA-tus sum magis quam hono-RA-tus.

The new words here make a play on words together: honoratus means "honored" and oneratus "burdened." Remember that many Latin speakers did not pronounce the initial "h" which means these words sounded even more similar!

The word oneratus is related to the English word "onerous."

You have seen honoratus before, but you have seen the verb that it comes from: honorat. This adjective is the passive participle of that verb in fact.

The words come from the Roman historian Livy; the speaker is Minucius, addressing Fabius.

5. Ego sum rex Romanus et supra grammaticam.
I am (the) Roman king and above grammar.
ego sum rex Ro-MA-nus et supra gram-MA-ticam.

Here you see for the first time ego, the pronoun that means "I" in English... and which gives us the English word "ego." This is the nominative form of the pronoun, so it is the subject of the verb: Ego sum. Because sum by itself already means "I am," the ego is just added here for emphasis.

The adjective Romanus means "Roman," and it is masculine nominative singular, agreeing with rex. You haven't seen this adjective before, but of course you have seen the name of the city itself: Roma.

The word grammaticam is the accusative form of grammatica, "grammar," as in English "grammatical," etc. This is a word the Romans borrowed from the Greeks; gramma means "letter" in Greek (like a letter of the alphabet), and it also means "writing," from the verb grapho, "write."
The story behind this saying is a fun one: during the Council of Constance, the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund made a mistake speaking Latin; when on the cardinals corrected the emperor's mistake, this is what he said! Find out more at Wikipedia: Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, which includes this anecdote.

Here's a recap: