Audere est Facere- from a Latin student.

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I hate to discredit Zoc and his "improved" translation of our club motto, but as a Latin student of 6 years, I had to make this right after hearing about it briefly on the podcast.

Zoc's translation of "Daring is Achieving" is grammatically incorrect. This translation would require the adjectives "audax, audacis" and some from of the Latin verb "perficio" meaning to achieve.
"To Dare" is an infinitive in Latin, formed from the 2nd principle part of the verb "audeo", meaning dare. Also on that note, "facere" is the infinitive of "facio", meaning to make or do. "est" is simply a form of the verb "to be", so therefore To Dare is to Do is the most accurate Latin translation.

I feel like a latin nerd now, but whatever. Reply with any questions or concerns you have with this useless language that I've spent 6 years of my life studying.
 
I agree and I raised this at the time but I think ZoC's point was more that the accurate literal translation in English doesn't say what the Latin meant. As in, we don't normally talk using infinitives in English nowadays and "do" has a range of potential meanings.

I have no problem with audere est facare or to dare is to do. My personal favourite is daring to achieve.
 
Well surely you can appreciate that language is incredibly subjective, especially when it comes to translating as so much context can be lost. The only reason I don't mind to dare is to do is because I understand it as daring to achieve or dare to achieve if you prefer. ZoC was pointing out that the phrase "to dare is to do", in English, doesn't actually make sense and loses its original intent and poetry.

I guess the question is what do you think, in your own words, the phrase "to dare is to do" means, or rather what was the intention and context of audere est facere?
 
I think 'daring to achieve' sounds shit but ZoCs ultimate suggestion of 'to dare is to achieve', or 'daring is achieving' is very aspirational and articulates the spirit club rather well.

As for adjectives, pronouns or whatever else I have no idea whatsoever. Fick cunt, me.
 
I always took "to dare is to do" to mean that to play the Spurs way of bold and audacious football requires us to take risks. By "daring", we are "doing" the way of football that is inherent in our club. By being daring we are forced into playing the flowing style that we know and love. But Zoc's suggestion makes more sense if you translate it liberally. Whatever. It's just been bugging me for a while.
 
am I the only person who thinks 'To Dare is to do' makes perfect sense as a sentence/phrase. The actual phrasing has nothing to do with Tottenham Hotspur, we just adopted it.

Or have I missed the whole entire point of this argument?
 
boneycrisp said:
am I the only person who thinks 'To Dare is to do' makes perfect sense as a sentence/phrase. The actual phrasing has nothing to do with Tottenham Hotspur, we just adopted it.

Or have I missed the whole entire point of this argument?

No, I concur with you, I could ask any Latin teacher or professor I know and they would say 'To Dare is to do' is the translation and that if we are going to dare something, then we have to do it. (Sorry for pointing out the obvious I know)
 
tmacspurs said:
The pronunciation is all wrong, too. It's pronounced "Ow-dare-ay est fa-ker-ay". Propa translation, you feel me :nawty: :mong:
That's how I pronounce it. But ZoC is also correct. Latin was around for centuries as a living language.

And speaking as a Latin student of 20 years, I can assure you that there is nothing wrong with ZoC's translation in respect to his verb forms. He uses a verb as a noun (a gerund) whereas the Latin effectively does the same with an infinitive - compare "I like to read" with "I like reading". Not adjectives, I should point out (although 'daring' is an adjective in other contexts, just not here).

'To dare is to do' is the word for word translation, but there are many reasons we don't do word for word translations all the time.

The main one is that the object of translation is to convey the meaning accurately. "To dare is to do" doesn't do this, because you then have to supply contextual information to make the original intent clear.
The ultimate aim of translating 'audere est facere' would be to provide a single English phrase that lets the reader get the same concept in just a few words.

For what it's worth, I don't think ZoC's version does this either.
My solution? Don't translate it.
 
When I lived and studied in France, I had to learn Latin at uni as part of my degree.

I had learned it as a kid in England, but the French pronounced it very differently. Like us, they pronounce it like they see it (i.e. in a French accent). The Italians pronounce it in an Italian accent.

The truth is, nobody is sure how the Romans pronounced Latin, as they weren't yet advanced enough to have invented electronic recording. However, we do know from Latin poetry that they pronounced every letter and every syllable (hence 'audere' being pronounced 'or-dare-ay').

ZoC's pronunciation is distinctly Italian, which is incorrect in England, but correct in Italy.
 
@ tmacspurs tmacspurs Completely out the blue & very old but quick question - despite how naive it may sound - in Latin, do they use full stops for sentence breaks, as we do with roman numerals? Thanks
 
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