Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 May 24

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May 24

Term for a demographic

A question on another desk has intrigued me about a terminological issue. What's the name (in a marketing/sociological context) for the period of one's life between "young adulthood" and "middle age"? We have articles Young adult (psychology) and Middle age which put the upper boundary of young adulthood at 40, but a book, film, or TV show targeted at "young adults" would not be designed to appeal to someone in their late 20s, let alone their late 30s. What do the marketing people call this agegroup? Tevildo (talk) 20:56, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

I think Psychographic categories are the way things are trending these days in marketing, not age-based categories alone. But have a look at Millennials or Generation Z, or some of the terms in Market segmentation. Also see New-adult fiction for ages 18-25. 184.147.134.128 (talk) 21:26, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Help with Latin RPG Button

A friend of mine will be attending his 25th year at a gamecon this August. He's hosting his own self-created game, the point of which is for combatants during the late Roman Republic to come out with their interests ahead, but also not having destroyed the republic as such. Basically, who can avoid the civil wars and Augustan imperium wins.

The big thing is that he wants to have a short catchy name for the game, in Latin, that can be printed out on buttons to be given to the recipients.

His immediate idea was "Quisnam Res Publica Infractus". I explained that this was worse than "Romanes Eunt Domus" given the improper nominative case and that fact that Latin of the era didn't have a participial perfect, and he understood, having had German. I suggested something easy like "cuja culpa est/sit/erit" which he understood but thought was too vague and uncatchy. I suggested that he really needs to select a verb, since infrangeo means to break in pieces (not his real meaning) and deleo means more like wipe out, again not his meaning. If the English were to be a loose and idiomatic "Who killed the Republic" what might be a Latin translation that preserves the intended meaning? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 21:03, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

For anyone not familiar with the Romanes Eunt Domus sketch, here it is. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 22:20, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

The Latin translation of "I came. I played. I saved the Republic"? Clarityfiend (talk) 00:22, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

Good one, I will suggest that, hehe. μηδείς (talk) 17:17, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

There's a ton of words for "overthrow" or "destroy" in Latin, so you have a lot of options...I wouldn't use a word for "kill" necessarily, since that would apply to living things. How about "Quis rem publicam labefecit?" (Also, I think you were going for "Cuius culpa est", whic means "whose fault is it", or you could also say "cui cupla est" - not "cuia" though.) Adam Bishop (talk) 10:27, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

I assumed cujus was an adjective agreeing with culpa in gender, as it is in Spanish, cuya culpa. μηδείς (talk) 17:17, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

The Latin genitive cujus (same for all three genders) apparently got reinterpreted as an adjective in Spanish probably because it formally resembled the nominative of an adjective (non-existent cujus, cuja, cujum on the model of bonus, bona, bonum). Since cujus formally resembles a nominative, not an accusative, that must have happened in pre-Spanish when both subject case and object case were still part of the language, is it not? Just speculating. Contact Basemetal here 17:49, 25 May 2015 (UTC)

I have suggested VENI, LUSI, NON DESTRUXI on the basis of Adama's and Clarity's suggestions, and Basemetal is spot on that cuius is the genitive of quis, not an adjective in Latin itself. Thanks all. μηδείς (talk) 21:38, 27 May 2015 (UTC)