On Apr 9, 2:06=A0am, Alastor <ross...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Surely ridens has a benign significance unless or until provided with
> a predicate and even then the context would need to be malign for the
> action to be considered ridicule. =A0I could say the same of 'smiling
> wind' - it immediately suggests something pleasant unless we qualify
> it as 'Smiling-at-your-disaster Wind'. Similarly 'Laughing wind' is
> benign unless we assume 'Laughing-at-your-misfortune Wind'.
Yes, meaning depends on context and "ridens" can certainly be neutral
or benign, and it can mean smiling as well as laughing. The laugh of
schadenfreude is, however, a major sub-category of its possible
meanings. Its stem after all is in our English word "ridicule".
> Yes, in a dangerous storm 'Smiling Wind' or 'Laughing Wind' would
> seem cruelly ironic, but so would just about any pleasant name.
Yes, but there's a difference between the irony that arises when a
name ceases to be appropriate and that which arises because it is all
too appropriate. And when you're sailing the wind doesn't have to be
blowing a storm to mock you. It can do so by ****fting awkwardly, by
blowing in the wrong direction, by a sudden gust or by blowing 100
yards away and not at the spot where you are becalmed.
> However, I'm no Latin Scholar, except in an amateur sense, and as
> somebody still learning I appreciate the discipline of having my
> comments scrutinized in this thoughtful way. Otherwise I would have
> to pay for it with tuition fees! Thanks.
Don't go thinking my opinion is any more authoritative than
yours. :-)
--
Decimus...
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