Nonagesimus Quartus: August 22, 2008: Edo + Esse + Edo
Theme for this week: Easily confused words
edo, edere or esse, edi, esum
Definition: to eat, to devour
sum, esse, fui, futurum
Definition: to be
edo, edere, edidi, editum
Definition: to put forth, discharge; to emit; to produce; to declare, relate, utter; to cause, perform; to publish; to promulgate; ludos ~ put on a show
Sententiae: Eva dicit eam velle esse glirem.
Eva says that she wants to EAT a dormice (not "be" =D).
The credit for the above sentence must go to Dr. Glover, as it was on a quiz on indirect statement when I was in Latin 2 (i.e. 3 years ago in September). Gratias ei ago!
Another sentence for edo, esse, this one from Book 4 of the Aeneid, lines 66 and 67:
Est molles flamma medullas
interea, et tacitum vivit sub pectore vulnus
Meanwhile the flame devours the soft marrows, and a silent wound lives under the chest.
Elephantes ludos ediderunt, et saltantes et salientes cum musica et tecti textu permultis coloribus et vitta stellata fulva iaspide
The elephants put on a show, both dancing and jumping with the music and covered by a cloth with very many colors and with a headband starred/glittering/spangled with tawny jasper.
Out of these three words, if you discount the macrons, there are only two forms for the infinitive. Thus, it is essential to either be able to determine whether or not the vowel is long by scansion or determine which of the three words it is by context. The same trend of yesterday's words continues--you learn sum very early, and then have to pay attention later on when edo, esse starts occuring. Sorry, but I am not going to determine how often these words occur in the syllabus--"sum" occurs too many times to be able to do that, and often Perseus mixes up similar words like the "edo"s and the common infinitives.
NB: Bold and underline == macron