Monday, December 06, 2004
Moonbats
Yesterday I criticized the solecistic "macroglossius lunarius abundantia fectum comedo" as a translation of "long-tongued poo eating moonbat." Today I'll give my translation of the phrase.
Let's start with "long-tongued." It should be macroglossus, from Greek makros (long) and glossa (tongue), not macroglossius. The adjective macroglossus can be found in botanical nomenclature, e.g. Macroglossus minimus, otherwise known as the dagger-toothed flower bat.
For "poo eating," I'd suggest coprophagus, from Greek kopros (dung) and phageo (eat). My ancient (1872) copy of Liddell and Scott has the verb koprophageo (with no citations), but not the adjective koprophagos. However, the word formation is proper, and in English we have coprophagous.
The Latin adjective meaning "pertaining to the moon" is lunaris, not lunarius.
Finally, the ancient Latin word for bat is vespertilio, from vesper (evening).
Putting these all together, we get "macroglossus coprophagus lunaris vespertilio" for "long-tongued poo eating moonbat."
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Let's start with "long-tongued." It should be macroglossus, from Greek makros (long) and glossa (tongue), not macroglossius. The adjective macroglossus can be found in botanical nomenclature, e.g. Macroglossus minimus, otherwise known as the dagger-toothed flower bat.
For "poo eating," I'd suggest coprophagus, from Greek kopros (dung) and phageo (eat). My ancient (1872) copy of Liddell and Scott has the verb koprophageo (with no citations), but not the adjective koprophagos. However, the word formation is proper, and in English we have coprophagous.
The Latin adjective meaning "pertaining to the moon" is lunaris, not lunarius.
Finally, the ancient Latin word for bat is vespertilio, from vesper (evening).
Putting these all together, we get "macroglossus coprophagus lunaris vespertilio" for "long-tongued poo eating moonbat."
