The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Cave To Conservatives Or CAVE ASINI

Posted on | August 10, 2012 | 11 Comments

by Smitty

Emphasis mine


Which conservatives are those? The ones who rocked the 2010 election, the ones who put Cruz on the ballot in Texas, or the ones who supported Chick-Fil-A this month to record effect?

Cave to conservatives or beware: jackasses! The Progressive course has failed to produce anything but debt and propaganda. It is dead to us.

Category: Election 2012, Uncategorized

Comments

11 Responses to “Cave To Conservatives Or CAVE ASINI”

  1. PaulLemmen
    August 10th, 2012 @ 8:42 am

    *snicker*
    I love punnish wordplay, especially bi-lingual wordplay. Kudos!

  2. Bob Belvedere
    August 10th, 2012 @ 10:27 am

    Brilliant punditry and punnery!

  3. smitty
    August 10th, 2012 @ 10:39 am

    I also love competence with tools, as I did not demonstrate here by publishing this retroactively.
    First day, new fingers.

  4. Deadman Turner
    August 10th, 2012 @ 11:30 am

    Asini should be Asinos (accusative plural, not nominative). I recommend the Second Imperative form: Caveto Asinos—“Do beware jackasses”.

  5. smitty
    August 10th, 2012 @ 11:43 am

    @allrightblog If the Latin was expanded to say ‘Beware jackasses bearing gifts’ would the jackasses shift from accusative to nominative?

  6. Deadman Turner
    August 10th, 2012 @ 11:46 am

    No, you’d use an adjectival participle, for “gift-bearing”, also in the accusative, or plagiarise Vergil:
    Caveo asinos et dona ferentes.

  7. Deadman Turner
    August 10th, 2012 @ 12:08 pm

     Caveto asinos dôrophoros.*

    * punning with doryphoros, “spear-carriers”.

  8. PaulLemmen
    August 10th, 2012 @ 12:24 pm

    Still brilliant! I hope my post today can reach that level …

  9. Quartermaster
    August 10th, 2012 @ 1:57 pm

    Pedants!

  10. smitty
    August 10th, 2012 @ 7:30 pm

    Let me test my understanding: the phrase “Beware X” has the implied subjet ‘you’, i.e. “(You) beware X,” making X the direct object?

  11. Deadman Turner
    August 11th, 2012 @ 4:28 am

    In Latin, Caveo has all sorts of constructions—it can, for instance. be used with ab and the ablative, or with a final clause—but, in the simplest usage “beware X”, yes, the verb is imperative and X is the direct object.