Proverbs/Grammar ~ Grammar/Proverbs: Latin Lesson #240: Some more res

The focus for today's lesson is some more sayings and proverbs with Latin res, that word with a hundred meanings: "thing, business, affair, doings, deed, matter," etc.

And here is the slideshow (with cats) of the words you have seen before. There's only one truly new word today, and it's a really cool Latin word too — you actually know it as an English word and probably didn't even suspect it was Latin!

And here are today's proverbs:

1. Re magis quam specie.
By-the-thing more than by-its-appearance.
re magis quam SPE-cie.

You know all the words in this saying! And you actually have two 5th-declension nouns: re is the ablative form of res, and specie is the ablative form of species.

There is an implied verb like "judge" or "make your decision," the idea being that you should make your decision about something based on what the thing really is, res, and not based on its appearance, species. As you learned from an earlier proverb: Species decipit, i.e. "Looks can be deceiving," as we say in English.

2. Omni in re modus est optimus.
In every thing, moderation is best.
omni in re modus est OP-timus.

You know all the words in this saying too! The word re is again the ablative form of res, and so the adjective omni is also in the ablative: omni in re, "in every thing."

You've seen many sayings about the dangers of excess and in praise of moderation, such as Omne nimium nocet and Modice vivere est optime vivere.

3. Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re.
Gently in manner, forcefully in-the-thing (you do).
SUA-viter in modo, FOR-titer in re.

You haven't seen the adverb suaviter before, but you have seen the adjective that it is derived from: suavis.

The word re is again ablative, just as modo is the ablative form of modus.
The opposition here is between the manner in which something is done, modus (like English "mode"), and the actual doing of the thing; you could even translate in re here as "in deed."

Note that the word modus has a different meaning in this proverb than in the previous one; you might want to take a look at the wide range of meanings in the Latin-English dictionary entry for modus.

This saying is like the one from the previous lesson: In verbo suavis, in re gravis.

4. Amicus certus in re incerta cernitur.
A-certain friend is-discerned in an-uncertain situation.
a-MI-cus certus in re in-CER-ta CER-nitur.

You know the words in this saying from a very similar saying you saw previously: Amicus certus in necessitate cernitur. Compare also the English saying: "A friend in need is a friend indeed."

The word re is again ablative, so you know that incerta is also in the ablative (incertā).

The verb cernitur, "is discerned, is known" is the passive form of cernit.

Notice the nice sound-play: certus - incerta - cernitur.

5. Verus amicus noscitur ex amore, more, ore, re.
A-true friend is-known by love, conduct, speech, deed.
verus a-MI-cus NOS-citur ex a-MO-re, more, ore, re.

Isn't this an ingenious little saying? And of course it is impossible to truly render in English, because it is the word-play of amore-more-ore-re that makes the saying so ingenious.

Like cernitur in the previous saying, noscitur is the passive form of the verb noscit.

The word amore is the ablative of amor, the word more is the ablative of mos, the word ore is the ablative of os, and re of course is the ablative of res.

The only new word here is mos which means "conduct, behavior, habit; law, rule." The plural of mos is mores, which is a word we use in English: "mores." In the plural, Latin mores means "character, personality." In other words, your personality is made up of all your behaviors and all your habits. In English, the word "mores" is used to refer to the general rules or customs of a society. And yes, this is also the source of the English words "moral" and "morality," etc.

Here's a recap: