On Apr 9, 3:57=A0am, "Ed Cryer" <e...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> "Decimus Canus" <dkahn...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
>
> news:b89b83f5-991d-4642-a863-2f07d982dcdc@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> On Apr 8, 5:59 pm, I wrote:
>
> > Enter the phrase "My guardian angel watch over me" and what does it
> > return but "Meus Curator Angelus Incubo Mihi"?
>
> And indeed the same online translator renders "angels watch over me"
> as "angelus incubo mihi". Perhaps I should have tried that first. =A0:-)
>
> --
> Dave...
>
> **************
>
> Now, that takes the biscuit. Congratulations on checking. I suppose if
> you changed "incubo" to "incubat" (thanks BT) then it would have been a
> passable translation.
> Does the online translator always put verbs in the first person
> singular?
>
> I'm still quite impressed with the resultant Latin sentence. I'm
> wondering about the old probability thought game of monkeys at
> typewriters banging on the keys and eventually producing a work of
> Shakespeare's.
>
> Ed
Ed, where are you going to put all these monkeys? We are talking about
an infinite or astronomical number of them, aren't we? I already have
s****s getting into the house and I don't want any monkeys. But I also
have doubts about the logic of it. For a monkey to have a reasonable
chance of writing 'Measure for Measure' at random, you would need an
astronomical number of universes like ours, or else our universe would
need to contain an astronomical number of worlds like ours, and either
way we are really just talking about the same set of monkeys
reproduced an almost infinite number of times. The probability of
'Measure for Measure' arising from any such set is remote and it
doesn't improve just by multiplying the set ad nauseam. If Shakespeare
was in fact a monkey, that would be a different matter. I wish he
were! Because then I'd feel a whole lot better about things in
general. Also, I think the lady was after an epitaph for her mother's
grave.
However, I agree with you that 'Angelus incubo mihi' does look
fascinating. It has a strange kind of transcendental logic about it,
like one of those Hindu or Buddhist mantras or meditational exercises.
I mean, in order to become like an angel, I would have to keep watch
over my thoughts and feelings just as if I were an angel already. But
if I am an angel already, why should I have to keep watch over my
thoughts and feelings? It's the kind of reasoning that leads in ever
expanding circles to nowhere, like a rock dropped in an infinite
pond.
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