Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
Discussion - Member to Member Sales - Research Center
03:59:47am
On one of the several websites I frequent the following statement was posted in an opinion that indicated that the poster was a misled newbie;
" ... I know from past experience that serious Machin collectors generally do not touch used examples. ..."
Thus my reply;
Reading that comment I am sure that half a dozen "serious" Machin collectors around the world went into immediate cardiac arrest and some may not be able to lift a stamp or squeeze their tong,or tongs, (Tweezers for Brits.) for weeks.
Truthfully, all of stamping can be divided, much as ancient Gaul, along three lines.
Some do concentrate on " Mint, never in the same room as a hinge" examples.
Others, prefer nicely cancelled used stamps, adopting the precept that stamps were made to prepay postage, not become souvenirs.
The third group may lean toward the former, or the latter, but will still be quite happy to find and mount which ever comes their way or even seek both a postally used example as well as a unused one.
I fall into the third group, but really prefer a stamp that has done its job carrying a message of love, or hate, a threat, a condemnation or a notice of an overdue bill, from one person to another, sometimes over great distances and though several handlings.
In fact, I have a sub-collection of Machins that we call "SOTNs" (Socked on the Nose) examples which are stamps that bear all, or almost all, of the circular date cancellation marks, the more complete, the happier I am.
But it gets better, and drawing again on my analogy of poor Gaul and its tribal groupings, each broad stamp band is subdivided into different clusters of collectors who have their own proclivities.
Many stampers love postal history and lust after complete envelopes that not only have different or unusual stamps properly cancelled, but also can be shown to have a story by those collectors who pay attention to the postmark and the added routing marks that were accumulated along the way. It is often amazing what knowledgeable curious collectors can divine from those cancellations through their accumulated knowledge and investigative efforts.
Other collectors accumulate each example in blocks that have markings attached along the margins that indicate, not only which printing was/is the source of an individual block, but also on which corner or margin of the overall sheet the stamp began its star crossed life.
Some collectors cluster around a topic such as "lighthouses, birds, flags, ships" and so on, a list of those possibilities could fill up several pages or more, while others are entranced by stamps of one country or geographic area instead of world wide. Some vie for the illusory goal of "completion" as again opposed to those who are happy with their assemblage of some subject or wider geographic area.
So, if someone, albeit with good intentions, should tell you that mint stamps are the only way to go, they have led you astray. I'd suggest that you withhold a firm judgement until you see all the possibilities and can make a well informed choice based on what appeals to your fancy rather than assume that there is some strict doctrinal rule.
In fact, you will find that the only hard and fast rule of philately is that there are no rules. It is your collection and you will achieve the most enjoyment by collecting what you want the way you want.
I have been collecting as an adult for over fifty years. I have met many dealers who seem to be as much friends as sellers of a commercial product. I also know that it is a tough business and turning a profit keeps them not only off the dole, but their children in college and their wives from roaming Piccadilly Square.
But there are some who do not come close to the above arbitrary designations.
That is all a part of the learning process.
One of the most challenging aspects of being a dealer, a successful dealer, is replacing the stock with a sufficient quantity of quality stamps to sell. Used stamps are very time consuming to locate, evaluate, purchase, sort, stock, display and eventually transfer to a satisfied buyer. ( That's the "H" in P&H). Much of the difficulty involves condition and obviously a stamp that has been through the mails, soaked from an envelope, mounted by a collector, possibly resold several times and eventually is ready to be sold by some dealer, is that things happen, some of which are too sad to mention, but things that affect the overall condition of a stamp or the cover it is on.
Plus, just locating good used stamps at a good price to resell can be time consuming.
That is why so many modern dealers choose mint, never hinged issues to sell as much as they can. To a certain degree, it is vastly simpler to buy sheets of new stamps from postal agencies and resell them per piece. Sets are easier to complete that way, and make very attractive sales displays.
Most of the aforementioned "damage" from being mailed and then handled several times by multiple stampers is avoided and the debate between a buyer and seller as to "condition" becomes a moot point. Not always a mute point, but largely nothing loud enough to diminish the price of the transaction.
And it is much easier to deal with a collector who is interested in unused stamps and the gum that remains virginal, assuming that that pristine condition is maintained.
Thus the attitude; Hinges Begone !
So, many dealers choose to go that route and when asked for postally used, especially by someone new the hobby, might tend to push what they have to sell. It's only human nature.
A very large proportion of the hobby's sales are of used stamps and that is because so many collectors, possibly a plurality, either prefer that mode of collecting, or do not care as long as the stamps are attractive and interesting.
To sum it up, you have to evaluate the speaker (Seller or collector) just as much as you might examine the stamps.
I just recently returned an approval selection to a mail order dealer from whom I began to purchase stamps sometime in the early 1970s, long before I moved from New York to Florida almost thirty years ago. He and his wife have become casual acquaintances over the years, exchanging notes and discussing some of the aspects of our lives and families. If he or his wife outlive me they will probably get the chance to buy my albums back in bulk and resell them to other collectors. He is but one example of a dealer that a person can work with.
Before the brick and mortar stamp stores joined stables and horse shoeing barns, and stamping moved to the internet, there were quite a few local dealers that knew me by name as well as my collecting interests by sight.
As you proceed you will find sellers who enjoy the hobby as much as you do and while it is their business they manage quite well without being too pushy or distracted visualizing that next potential big spending customer down the road.
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Charlie
Love the write-up. But I really like the "dog"cancel. Great display.
Gro
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I added a few of those dog cancels to my Dogs collection - fun stuff!
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""Gallia, est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertaim, qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appellantur. ...""
It's about time!!
We were required to memorize this (actually, a much longer passage of which this is the first sentence) in 3rd-year Latin in high school! That would have been in the mid-70's (just to clarify, 1970's
, in a small city in the deep South, at a public school no less!But back to the point. As we struggled to memorize this, and eventually to individually recite it before the class, I remember our Latin teacher saying that knowing this passage was a mark of a well-educated person, and that it would eventually pay off in a cocktail party conversation some day.
Well, that never happened, but now, 47-48 years later, I recognized this immediately! (And, unfortunately, Google renders the feat virtually meaningless ... )
But that line above is the opening sentence of Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War.
More here, and context, if anyone is interested:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commentarii_de_Bello_Gallico
Finally!!!!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
I didn't even realize until a few minutes ago that this was on my bucket list, but it turns out it was. What a sense of closure (on this subject, anyway ...)!
-- Dave
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Great Charlie...Time to organize my stash...love the cancels
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Dave, I too had to memorize that, and I still remember it (but only the first line; I think there's a bit about rivers after that). When I taught undergraduates many years ago, I would use it colorfully as an example, as in "This assessment, like Gaul, is divided into three parts" and they would know what I meant. Sadly, not so these days. At my last class a few years ago, one student asked me who "Gaul" was and another asked if that was going to be on the exam. Ugh.
Charlie, I once bought a kiloware box of stamps from a British company on eBay (now long gone) and instead of getting an assortment of stamps, I got an assortment of thousands of used Machins! Don't ask me what I did with them or you might divide me into three parts. Like Gaul.
Pax et Bonum,
Petra
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10:19:26pm
" .... We were required to memorize this ....... in 3rd-year Latin in high school! ...."
Actually, for me it was the second year at St John's Prep in Brooklyn, NY. (1953-54) For the end of the second year and later, my parents had moved from the city and the new school didn't offer Spanish, which I had also started, so I began my dismal two year adventure with French and Sister Marie Emerich.
Lots of things including the longer passage that you mentioned both those in Latin as well as English Literature were required memorization.
They divided the class in three parts and assigned each section to translate Bennett's Commentaries on the Gallic War. I was in the first section so my group began with "... Gallia, est omnis divisa in partes tres, ..." ( All of Gaul is divided into three parts ....").
I still have the green Allyn and Bacon printing on the shelf across the room from this computer desk. I just never could part with it.
Your Latin instructor was correct, knowing some Latin as well as other languages, despite the mental sweat and their seeming uselessness to help manage the navigation of Brooklyn's subway system does greatly enhance the language skills that are the mark of not making the football team.
An interesting aside; Did you watch the HBO series "Rome" a few years ago, the story of the adventure of Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus. They were apparently real people, two competitive Centurions in the XI Legion, who became blood brothers during their term in Caesar's legions. They actually disappeared from history after the passages recorded by Julius Caesar, but must have been to hellhounds in battle.
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Peter: Who was Gaul? Wasn't that some old dude from the Bible? 
(And hats off tying that post back to Machins and Gaul!)
Charlie: I'm not sure that knowing that passage had ever proved helpful (until today!), but I am certainly glad I took Latin. (I had 5 years. Not sure I got much out of the 5th one; probably could have done just fine with 4.)
As you pointed out, it was incredibly helpful -- both on the verbal portion of standardized tests, like the SATs, GREs, LSATs, GMATs (took 'em all!), and especially in the study of other Romance languages (spent some years with French and Spanish).
It also ended up helping me understand English grammar, which never made sense to me until I had a year of Latin. And, especially with that sensitivity to grammar, it helped a lot with German, and surprisingly even helped with Japanese.
Go figure ...
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Absolutely yes - studying Latin is a fantastic way to better understand English grammar. As a matter of fact, some 18th century grammarians became so enamored of Latin Grammar that they tried to force the English language to follow similar rules. Their attempts at prescriptive grammar created some laughable and downright silly rules such as "no double negatives" and "avoid dangling prepositions." Yes, I am a blatant descriptive grammar aficionado and abhor such archaic rules. Language is a living breathing organism and is constantly evolving. To try to force it to remain static is just plain silly and quite impossible unless it is spoken by people who live in complete isolation who never experience change.
That said, I do believe that academic and official writing should follow an agreed upon standard register otherwise chaos ensues. But for every day conversation and chitchat - dangle those preps, baby!!!
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I immediately recognised and was able to translate your header, despite not having studied Latin for more than 50 years. We began to learn Latin at 8 years old, and although I wanted to take the subject at A Level my school forbade it on the grounds that no pupil was allowed to take both French and Latin! (In other words, they did not have the staff...)
I wholeheartedly endorse Philatarium's experience. In English lessons with my Year 6 pupils I always drew attention to the considerable expansion in vocabulary that was available to them if they knew a Latin root-word. I exhorted them to take a Latin option the following year when they moved up to secondary education (if such an option were available). I wonder how many did.
It goes without saying that Latin is of some help when studying words and inscriptions on stamps of many European and American countries.
PS: It's possible that Latin made me rather more pedantic - please edit to tertiam in your Caesar!
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Charlie, the Nuns did have their good points..my wifes schooling ended at age 15 but she could write and speak French,English,German and of course Dutch ! Many of my buddies flunked English and did not graduate High School !
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10:12:52am
What is the translation of the whole passage?
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"Gallia, est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertaim, qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appellantur. ..."
The whole of Gallia is divided into three parts, of which the Belgae inhabit one, the Aquitani another, and the third, who in their own language are called Celts, in ours are called Gauls.
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My favourite Latin quote: "Illegitimi non carborundum."
boB
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12:13:15pm
" .... As a matter of fact, some 18th century grammarians became so enamored of Latin Grammar that they tried to force the English language to follow similar rules. ..."
And a lesson learned.
There was an effort to create a Linguistic Rules Committee along the lines of the "Académie Française " and similar groups in other nations created to insure the continued purity of their native tongues. The movement failed and today the English language has spread around the world, spoken by, or at least understood by, more people than any other outside the Chinese sphere of influence. And Chinese has two or three dialects that are to some degree incomprehensible to one another.
English, while commonly spoken with about 100 root words and their derivatives, has some 500,000 listed words by definition and perhaps an equal number of specialized "technical jargon words."
Because the national academies guard the purity of their languages steadfastly, Engish has more defined words than French, Spanish, German and I think Italian all together.
An English speaker can take some linguistic construction from French and use it in his sentence and if it is convenient and catches on, that word or phrase is welcomed into our speaking pattern.
On the other hand when a French speaker uses a word absorbed from "La langue anglaise" it seems that the heads of the leading members of "Académie Française " explode sequentially.
So, I think we should be thankful that that effort of "18th century grammarians" utterly failed.
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But there's still no excuse for "irregardless" and "Charlie and me is on this topic"!
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As well as "most unique" or "very unique"
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Hi Everyone;
Reading this thread reminded me of a Latin passage that I must have seen hundreds of
times, without knowing what one single word meant nor did I care.
Maybe you can decipher it's meaning:
Cicero, written in 45 BC
"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt
ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation
ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit
in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat
non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum."
The above passage drove the spell checker into siezures. 
It is used as 'dummy' text, by typesetters, when starting a new page layout. It was used
by Aldus PageMaker on the early Macintosh platform. It's purpose was to allow type-
setters to start flowing text around photos and pull-quotes etc. without being distracted
by text 'rivers', 'widows', and 'orphans'. Widows occur when a paragraph ends up at the
bottom of a page and the last line of text is on the next page. Orphans occur when a para-
graph's last line is just one work. Rivers occur when the spaces between words line up
vertically creating meandering 'rivers' of blank space down thru a long passage of text.
After getting the Lorem ipsum, so the page had good balance and looked good, then the
typesetter would flow the real text into place and begin editing to fix all the rivers,
orphans, and widows. This was done using adjustments in letter kerning (horizontal
spacing) leading between lines (vertical spacing) and even substituting some words with
longer or shorter words with the same meanings.
I don't think very many people do this anymore as typesetting is an art form that is nearly
dead. Just pick up recent printed matter and look at how awful it looks!
I had no idea that so many people studied Latin.
Keep on stampin'....
TuskenRaider
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It's a mixture of real Latin and made-up words. 'Google Translate' will manage the odd phrase, but mostly it's nonsense. I've been looking at it for the best part of an hour as I've tried, entirely in vain, to upload images to an article for this website.
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Hi Guthrum;
That is why it was used as "dummy text". It's only purpose was to fill a space with text,
by repeating the same passage over-and-over until the page was filled up. Then the
typesetter could go about trying different layouts and ideas, without distraction until the
layout was set.
Then began the fun task of replacing it with 'real text' and fixing everything to look good.
I did page layout as a independent contractor for a desk-top publishing firm. The rag was
the Illinois Police Association monthly newspaper, about 20-30 page tabloid size. Also
helped on a broadsheet paper, and several 8½ x 11 Magnecraft Electric product line catalogs.
I liked that part of journalism and it was very interesting. Never had to learn to read back-
wards tho.
Keep on stampin'....
TuskenRaider
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"It's a mixture of real Latin and made-up words. 'Google Translate' will manage the odd phrase, but mostly it's nonsense. I've been looking at it for the best part of an hour as I've tried, entirely in vain, to upload images to an article for this website."
Here's the Google translation from Latin:
"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor vitality such as labor and obesity. Over the years, I will come, who shall exercise nostrud efforts if the school district may aliquip advantage from it. Pain in the film has been criticized cupidatat He wants to be cillum flee in the pleasure of pain that produces no resultant football. Excepteur blacks are cupidatat not proident, they deserted the effeminate and their spirits, that is, the duties of those who are to blame for your troubles."
Makes sense to me!
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To get back to the Machins in the picture. I am sure that the original contributor is aware,and equally I am sure that some others among you are not - that most of the SOTN postmarks shown are not whole cancellations, but merely the date slug portion of a combined date slug with wavy line or slogan machine postmark.
Usually the date slug was clear of the stamp( to show unequivacally the date,time and place of posting/sorting)- and the slogan or wavy line cancelled the stamp - the examples shown had either the slug and cancel reversed - or were part of a multiple stamp usage. They may not even show the town of origin, as most of them are from regional sorting centres at various stages of the increasing centralisation of postal facilities. Most have now been replaced by the ubiquitous ink-jet spray postmarks ( when they even bother to cancel the stamps at all - but that is another can of worms to open !!).
Most collectors of postal history are not interested in such matters - to them postal history ended in 1900 or some such date, whereas in fact today's posted mail is postal history tomorrow. I collect such examples on piece with the whole of the cancellation intact(when I can find them). Now double-ring village cancellations are something else - and almost impossible to find SOTN - as they are too large !
Malcolm
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
06 Feb 2015
03:59:47am
"Gallia, est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertaim, qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appellantur. ..."
On one of the several websites I frequent the following statement was posted in an opinion that indicated that the poster was a misled newbie;
" ... I know from past experience that serious Machin collectors generally do not touch used examples. ..."
Thus my reply;
Reading that comment I am sure that half a dozen "serious" Machin collectors around the world went into immediate cardiac arrest and some may not be able to lift a stamp or squeeze their tong,or tongs, (Tweezers for Brits.) for weeks.
Truthfully, all of stamping can be divided, much as ancient Gaul, along three lines.
Some do concentrate on " Mint, never in the same room as a hinge" examples.
Others, prefer nicely cancelled used stamps, adopting the precept that stamps were made to prepay postage, not become souvenirs.
The third group may lean toward the former, or the latter, but will still be quite happy to find and mount which ever comes their way or even seek both a postally used example as well as a unused one.
I fall into the third group, but really prefer a stamp that has done its job carrying a message of love, or hate, a threat, a condemnation or a notice of an overdue bill, from one person to another, sometimes over great distances and though several handlings.
In fact, I have a sub-collection of Machins that we call "SOTNs" (Socked on the Nose) examples which are stamps that bear all, or almost all, of the circular date cancellation marks, the more complete, the happier I am.
But it gets better, and drawing again on my analogy of poor Gaul and its tribal groupings, each broad stamp band is subdivided into different clusters of collectors who have their own proclivities.
Many stampers love postal history and lust after complete envelopes that not only have different or unusual stamps properly cancelled, but also can be shown to have a story by those collectors who pay attention to the postmark and the added routing marks that were accumulated along the way. It is often amazing what knowledgeable curious collectors can divine from those cancellations through their accumulated knowledge and investigative efforts.
Other collectors accumulate each example in blocks that have markings attached along the margins that indicate, not only which printing was/is the source of an individual block, but also on which corner or margin of the overall sheet the stamp began its star crossed life.
Some collectors cluster around a topic such as "lighthouses, birds, flags, ships" and so on, a list of those possibilities could fill up several pages or more, while others are entranced by stamps of one country or geographic area instead of world wide. Some vie for the illusory goal of "completion" as again opposed to those who are happy with their assemblage of some subject or wider geographic area.
So, if someone, albeit with good intentions, should tell you that mint stamps are the only way to go, they have led you astray. I'd suggest that you withhold a firm judgement until you see all the possibilities and can make a well informed choice based on what appeals to your fancy rather than assume that there is some strict doctrinal rule.
In fact, you will find that the only hard and fast rule of philately is that there are no rules. It is your collection and you will achieve the most enjoyment by collecting what you want the way you want.
I have been collecting as an adult for over fifty years. I have met many dealers who seem to be as much friends as sellers of a commercial product. I also know that it is a tough business and turning a profit keeps them not only off the dole, but their children in college and their wives from roaming Piccadilly Square.
But there are some who do not come close to the above arbitrary designations.
That is all a part of the learning process.
One of the most challenging aspects of being a dealer, a successful dealer, is replacing the stock with a sufficient quantity of quality stamps to sell. Used stamps are very time consuming to locate, evaluate, purchase, sort, stock, display and eventually transfer to a satisfied buyer. ( That's the "H" in P&H). Much of the difficulty involves condition and obviously a stamp that has been through the mails, soaked from an envelope, mounted by a collector, possibly resold several times and eventually is ready to be sold by some dealer, is that things happen, some of which are too sad to mention, but things that affect the overall condition of a stamp or the cover it is on.
Plus, just locating good used stamps at a good price to resell can be time consuming.
That is why so many modern dealers choose mint, never hinged issues to sell as much as they can. To a certain degree, it is vastly simpler to buy sheets of new stamps from postal agencies and resell them per piece. Sets are easier to complete that way, and make very attractive sales displays.
Most of the aforementioned "damage" from being mailed and then handled several times by multiple stampers is avoided and the debate between a buyer and seller as to "condition" becomes a moot point. Not always a mute point, but largely nothing loud enough to diminish the price of the transaction.
And it is much easier to deal with a collector who is interested in unused stamps and the gum that remains virginal, assuming that that pristine condition is maintained.
Thus the attitude; Hinges Begone !
So, many dealers choose to go that route and when asked for postally used, especially by someone new the hobby, might tend to push what they have to sell. It's only human nature.
A very large proportion of the hobby's sales are of used stamps and that is because so many collectors, possibly a plurality, either prefer that mode of collecting, or do not care as long as the stamps are attractive and interesting.
To sum it up, you have to evaluate the speaker (Seller or collector) just as much as you might examine the stamps.
I just recently returned an approval selection to a mail order dealer from whom I began to purchase stamps sometime in the early 1970s, long before I moved from New York to Florida almost thirty years ago. He and his wife have become casual acquaintances over the years, exchanging notes and discussing some of the aspects of our lives and families. If he or his wife outlive me they will probably get the chance to buy my albums back in bulk and resell them to other collectors. He is but one example of a dealer that a person can work with.
Before the brick and mortar stamp stores joined stables and horse shoeing barns, and stamping moved to the internet, there were quite a few local dealers that knew me by name as well as my collecting interests by sight.
As you proceed you will find sellers who enjoy the hobby as much as you do and while it is their business they manage quite well without being too pushy or distracted visualizing that next potential big spending customer down the road.
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re: Omnia Philatelia
Charlie
Love the write-up. But I really like the "dog"cancel. Great display.
Gro
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re: Omnia Philatelia
I added a few of those dog cancels to my Dogs collection - fun stuff!
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re: Omnia Philatelia
""Gallia, est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertaim, qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appellantur. ...""
It's about time!!
We were required to memorize this (actually, a much longer passage of which this is the first sentence) in 3rd-year Latin in high school! That would have been in the mid-70's (just to clarify, 1970's
, in a small city in the deep South, at a public school no less!But back to the point. As we struggled to memorize this, and eventually to individually recite it before the class, I remember our Latin teacher saying that knowing this passage was a mark of a well-educated person, and that it would eventually pay off in a cocktail party conversation some day.
Well, that never happened, but now, 47-48 years later, I recognized this immediately! (And, unfortunately, Google renders the feat virtually meaningless ... )
But that line above is the opening sentence of Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War.
More here, and context, if anyone is interested:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commentarii_de_Bello_Gallico
Finally!!!!
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
I didn't even realize until a few minutes ago that this was on my bucket list, but it turns out it was. What a sense of closure (on this subject, anyway ...)!
-- Dave
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07:34:23pm
re: Omnia Philatelia
Great Charlie...Time to organize my stash...love the cancels
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09:39:50pm
re: Omnia Philatelia
Dave, I too had to memorize that, and I still remember it (but only the first line; I think there's a bit about rivers after that). When I taught undergraduates many years ago, I would use it colorfully as an example, as in "This assessment, like Gaul, is divided into three parts" and they would know what I meant. Sadly, not so these days. At my last class a few years ago, one student asked me who "Gaul" was and another asked if that was going to be on the exam. Ugh.
Charlie, I once bought a kiloware box of stamps from a British company on eBay (now long gone) and instead of getting an assortment of stamps, I got an assortment of thousands of used Machins! Don't ask me what I did with them or you might divide me into three parts. Like Gaul.
Pax et Bonum,
Petra
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
06 Feb 2015
10:19:26pm
re: Omnia Philatelia
" .... We were required to memorize this ....... in 3rd-year Latin in high school! ...."
Actually, for me it was the second year at St John's Prep in Brooklyn, NY. (1953-54) For the end of the second year and later, my parents had moved from the city and the new school didn't offer Spanish, which I had also started, so I began my dismal two year adventure with French and Sister Marie Emerich.
Lots of things including the longer passage that you mentioned both those in Latin as well as English Literature were required memorization.
They divided the class in three parts and assigned each section to translate Bennett's Commentaries on the Gallic War. I was in the first section so my group began with "... Gallia, est omnis divisa in partes tres, ..." ( All of Gaul is divided into three parts ....").
I still have the green Allyn and Bacon printing on the shelf across the room from this computer desk. I just never could part with it.
Your Latin instructor was correct, knowing some Latin as well as other languages, despite the mental sweat and their seeming uselessness to help manage the navigation of Brooklyn's subway system does greatly enhance the language skills that are the mark of not making the football team.
An interesting aside; Did you watch the HBO series "Rome" a few years ago, the story of the adventure of Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus. They were apparently real people, two competitive Centurions in the XI Legion, who became blood brothers during their term in Caesar's legions. They actually disappeared from history after the passages recorded by Julius Caesar, but must have been to hellhounds in battle.
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re: Omnia Philatelia
Peter: Who was Gaul? Wasn't that some old dude from the Bible? (And hats off tying that post back to Machins and Gaul!)
Charlie: I'm not sure that knowing that passage had ever proved helpful (until today!), but I am certainly glad I took Latin. (I had 5 years. Not sure I got much out of the 5th one; probably could have done just fine with 4.)
As you pointed out, it was incredibly helpful -- both on the verbal portion of standardized tests, like the SATs, GREs, LSATs, GMATs (took 'em all!), and especially in the study of other Romance languages (spent some years with French and Spanish).
It also ended up helping me understand English grammar, which never made sense to me until I had a year of Latin. And, especially with that sensitivity to grammar, it helped a lot with German, and surprisingly even helped with Japanese.
Go figure ...
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re: Omnia Philatelia
Absolutely yes - studying Latin is a fantastic way to better understand English grammar. As a matter of fact, some 18th century grammarians became so enamored of Latin Grammar that they tried to force the English language to follow similar rules. Their attempts at prescriptive grammar created some laughable and downright silly rules such as "no double negatives" and "avoid dangling prepositions." Yes, I am a blatant descriptive grammar aficionado and abhor such archaic rules. Language is a living breathing organism and is constantly evolving. To try to force it to remain static is just plain silly and quite impossible unless it is spoken by people who live in complete isolation who never experience change.
That said, I do believe that academic and official writing should follow an agreed upon standard register otherwise chaos ensues. But for every day conversation and chitchat - dangle those preps, baby!!!
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re: Omnia Philatelia
I immediately recognised and was able to translate your header, despite not having studied Latin for more than 50 years. We began to learn Latin at 8 years old, and although I wanted to take the subject at A Level my school forbade it on the grounds that no pupil was allowed to take both French and Latin! (In other words, they did not have the staff...)
I wholeheartedly endorse Philatarium's experience. In English lessons with my Year 6 pupils I always drew attention to the considerable expansion in vocabulary that was available to them if they knew a Latin root-word. I exhorted them to take a Latin option the following year when they moved up to secondary education (if such an option were available). I wonder how many did.
It goes without saying that Latin is of some help when studying words and inscriptions on stamps of many European and American countries.
PS: It's possible that Latin made me rather more pedantic - please edit to tertiam in your Caesar!
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re: Omnia Philatelia
Charlie, the Nuns did have their good points..my wifes schooling ended at age 15 but she could write and speak French,English,German and of course Dutch ! Many of my buddies flunked English and did not graduate High School !
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It is during our darkest moments that we must focus to see the light. - Aristotle Onassis
07 Feb 2015
10:12:52am
re: Omnia Philatelia
What is the translation of the whole passage?
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re: Omnia Philatelia
"Gallia, est omnis divisa in partes tres, quarum unam incolunt Belgae, aliam Aquitani, tertaim, qui ipsorum lingua Celtae, nostra Galli appellantur. ..."
The whole of Gallia is divided into three parts, of which the Belgae inhabit one, the Aquitani another, and the third, who in their own language are called Celts, in ours are called Gauls.
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re: Omnia Philatelia
My favourite Latin quote: "Illegitimi non carborundum."
boB
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Silence in the face of adversity is the father of complicity and collusion, the first cousins of conspiracy..
08 Feb 2015
12:13:15pm
re: Omnia Philatelia
" .... As a matter of fact, some 18th century grammarians became so enamored of Latin Grammar that they tried to force the English language to follow similar rules. ..."
And a lesson learned.
There was an effort to create a Linguistic Rules Committee along the lines of the "Académie Française " and similar groups in other nations created to insure the continued purity of their native tongues. The movement failed and today the English language has spread around the world, spoken by, or at least understood by, more people than any other outside the Chinese sphere of influence. And Chinese has two or three dialects that are to some degree incomprehensible to one another.
English, while commonly spoken with about 100 root words and their derivatives, has some 500,000 listed words by definition and perhaps an equal number of specialized "technical jargon words."
Because the national academies guard the purity of their languages steadfastly, Engish has more defined words than French, Spanish, German and I think Italian all together.
An English speaker can take some linguistic construction from French and use it in his sentence and if it is convenient and catches on, that word or phrase is welcomed into our speaking pattern.
On the other hand when a French speaker uses a word absorbed from "La langue anglaise" it seems that the heads of the leading members of "Académie Française " explode sequentially.
So, I think we should be thankful that that effort of "18th century grammarians" utterly failed.
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02:48:04pm
re: Omnia Philatelia
But there's still no excuse for "irregardless" and "Charlie and me is on this topic"!
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re: Omnia Philatelia
As well as "most unique" or "very unique"
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re: Omnia Philatelia
Hi Everyone;
Reading this thread reminded me of a Latin passage that I must have seen hundreds of
times, without knowing what one single word meant nor did I care.
Maybe you can decipher it's meaning:
Cicero, written in 45 BC
"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt
ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation
ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit
in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat
non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum."
The above passage drove the spell checker into siezures.
It is used as 'dummy' text, by typesetters, when starting a new page layout. It was used
by Aldus PageMaker on the early Macintosh platform. It's purpose was to allow type-
setters to start flowing text around photos and pull-quotes etc. without being distracted
by text 'rivers', 'widows', and 'orphans'. Widows occur when a paragraph ends up at the
bottom of a page and the last line of text is on the next page. Orphans occur when a para-
graph's last line is just one work. Rivers occur when the spaces between words line up
vertically creating meandering 'rivers' of blank space down thru a long passage of text.
After getting the Lorem ipsum, so the page had good balance and looked good, then the
typesetter would flow the real text into place and begin editing to fix all the rivers,
orphans, and widows. This was done using adjustments in letter kerning (horizontal
spacing) leading between lines (vertical spacing) and even substituting some words with
longer or shorter words with the same meanings.
I don't think very many people do this anymore as typesetting is an art form that is nearly
dead. Just pick up recent printed matter and look at how awful it looks!
I had no idea that so many people studied Latin.
Keep on stampin'....
TuskenRaider
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re: Omnia Philatelia
It's a mixture of real Latin and made-up words. 'Google Translate' will manage the odd phrase, but mostly it's nonsense. I've been looking at it for the best part of an hour as I've tried, entirely in vain, to upload images to an article for this website.
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re: Omnia Philatelia
Hi Guthrum;
That is why it was used as "dummy text". It's only purpose was to fill a space with text,
by repeating the same passage over-and-over until the page was filled up. Then the
typesetter could go about trying different layouts and ideas, without distraction until the
layout was set.
Then began the fun task of replacing it with 'real text' and fixing everything to look good.
I did page layout as a independent contractor for a desk-top publishing firm. The rag was
the Illinois Police Association monthly newspaper, about 20-30 page tabloid size. Also
helped on a broadsheet paper, and several 8½ x 11 Magnecraft Electric product line catalogs.
I liked that part of journalism and it was very interesting. Never had to learn to read back-
wards tho.
Keep on stampin'....
TuskenRaider
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re: Omnia Philatelia
"It's a mixture of real Latin and made-up words. 'Google Translate' will manage the odd phrase, but mostly it's nonsense. I've been looking at it for the best part of an hour as I've tried, entirely in vain, to upload images to an article for this website."
Here's the Google translation from Latin:
"Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor vitality such as labor and obesity. Over the years, I will come, who shall exercise nostrud efforts if the school district may aliquip advantage from it. Pain in the film has been criticized cupidatat He wants to be cillum flee in the pleasure of pain that produces no resultant football. Excepteur blacks are cupidatat not proident, they deserted the effeminate and their spirits, that is, the duties of those who are to blame for your troubles."
Makes sense to me!
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02:02:50pm
re: Omnia Philatelia
To get back to the Machins in the picture. I am sure that the original contributor is aware,and equally I am sure that some others among you are not - that most of the SOTN postmarks shown are not whole cancellations, but merely the date slug portion of a combined date slug with wavy line or slogan machine postmark.
Usually the date slug was clear of the stamp( to show unequivacally the date,time and place of posting/sorting)- and the slogan or wavy line cancelled the stamp - the examples shown had either the slug and cancel reversed - or were part of a multiple stamp usage. They may not even show the town of origin, as most of them are from regional sorting centres at various stages of the increasing centralisation of postal facilities. Most have now been replaced by the ubiquitous ink-jet spray postmarks ( when they even bother to cancel the stamps at all - but that is another can of worms to open !!).
Most collectors of postal history are not interested in such matters - to them postal history ended in 1900 or some such date, whereas in fact today's posted mail is postal history tomorrow. I collect such examples on piece with the whole of the cancellation intact(when I can find them). Now double-ring village cancellations are something else - and almost impossible to find SOTN - as they are too large !
Malcolm
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