Disputatio Usoris:IACOBVS.CELSVS

I learned something interesting today, from Abbott's Latin Prose Through English Idiom. He says that in English, we often use passive sentences to provide emphasis to the subject. For example, to emphasize John in John built the house, we can use a relative clause: It was John that build the house, or convert to passive: The house was built by John. So he says that since we can emphasize words in Latin by changing their positions, then if we come across an English passive, we should try to convert it to a Latin active.

His example is The soldiers were seized with a panic. In the active, Panic seized the soldiers, with emphasis on panic. so we translate as Milites cepit pavor.

I've noticed that there are lots and lots of passives in written English, so we might want to go back to the sentences we've already translated and modify them. --Robert.Baruch (disputatio) 05:11, 3 Decembris 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm very sorry, I had problems with my Internet provider (they messed up the setup of the network), and so I have been without Internet for quite a while. I'm back online, but the translating will be slow for some time, as I am very busy. I will probably be more able to work at night (MST). Once again, I'm sorry for the delay. | IACOBVS.CELSVS (disputatio) 20:09, 6 Decembris 2013 (UTC)[reply]