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I feel dumb for thinking "Caveat emptor" in the title meant "end of story". I don't quite understand why latin terms are used so often when plain english gets t

I feel dumb for thinking "Caveat emptor" in the title meant "end of story". I don't quite understand why latin terms are used so often when plain english gets the point across to more people.

willhinsa 5y ago
Personally I find Latin phrases to be more accurate and succinct than their English replacements. Plus, there's a lot of phrases that you're probably super familiar with that you just don't think about their origin being Latin. When I come across a new Latin phrase, I just treat it like a special kind of phrase that I can learn, in an ad hoc fashion. ;)
messe 5y ago
As latin phrases go "Caveat Emptor" is a pretty common one; it didn't seem out of place to me.
sho_hn 5y ago
Just a general linguistic phenomenon that source languages are sometimes invoked to elevate speech.
toyg 5y ago
Latin is a technical instrument of rhetoric and law. It conveys a set of concepts in a succinct manner by way of shared convention. If you talked to your plumber and said you have a "web server" in your basement, he'd think you give funny names to spiders. The concept of "web server" is a technical shorthand for "computer attached to a telecommunication system, typically the global internet network, that is dedicated to responding to request from other computers for hypertextual media to be delivered over such network". But webserver is shorter and everybody in your sector understands what it is, so you use that. Sure, you could say "I have a computer connected to the network that does stuff", something that "would get the point across to more people", but it would be a very rough and incomplete image. In the same way, people in literature, rhetoric, law, and medicine, use a lot of Latin words to convey specific meanings succinctly. Anybody worth their salt, in the sector, will appreciate them more than "plain English".
- tasha0663 5y ago
  > conveys a set of concepts in a succinct manner by way of shared convention Except that is not the case here. "Buyer Beware" is more succinct and in the same language as the rest of the headline. It's also not a domain-specific term, so shared convention is out. The author is sprinkling on some Latin to seem smarter.
tasha0663 5y ago
No worries. I took Latin for three years in school and did a double take because I confused it with "cave canem": Beware of the dog!

I feel dumb for thinking "Caveat emptor" in the title meant "end of story". I don't quite understand why latin terms are used so often when plain english gets the point across to more people.

willhinsa 5y ago

Personally I find Latin phrases to be more accurate and succinct than their English replacements. Plus, there's a lot of phrases that you're probably super familiar with that you just don't think about their origin being Latin. When I come across a new Latin phrase, I just treat it like a special kind of phrase that I can learn, in an ad hoc fashion. ;)

messe 5y ago

As latin phrases go "Caveat Emptor" is a pretty common one; it didn't seem out of place to me.

sho_hn 5y ago

Just a general linguistic phenomenon that source languages are sometimes invoked to elevate speech.

toyg 5y ago

Latin is a technical instrument of rhetoric and law. It conveys a set of concepts in a succinct manner by way of shared convention. If you talked to your plumber and said you have a "web server" in your basement, he'd think you give funny names to spiders. The concept of "web server" is a technical shorthand for "computer attached to a telecommunication system, typically the global internet network, that is dedicated to responding to request from other computers for hypertextual media to be delivered over such network". But webserver is shorter and everybody in your sector understands what it is, so you use that. Sure, you could say "I have a computer connected to the network that does stuff", something that "would get the point across to more people", but it would be a very rough and incomplete image. In the same way, people in literature, rhetoric, law, and medicine, use a lot of Latin words to convey specific meanings succinctly. Anybody worth their salt, in the sector, will appreciate them more than "plain English".

tasha0663 5y ago
> conveys a set of concepts in a succinct manner by way of shared convention Except that is not the case here. "Buyer Beware" is more succinct and in the same language as the rest of the headline. It's also not a domain-specific term, so shared convention is out. The author is sprinkling on some Latin to seem smarter.

tasha0663 5y ago

No worries. I took Latin for three years in school and did a double take because I confused it with "cave canem": Beware of the dog!