Monday, 6th June The Cardinall's Musick/Carwood 7.30 R3

[jean]

I know that - but why do so many people get it wrong?

[decantor]

The spelling adoloscentulus is very odd - the root, meaning 'grow', is -esco, as in cresco (which gives us crescent, and that's how it's spelt in the Vulgate.

I googled it just to see what came up, and there were a number of hits - some relating to this concert, but others to one by the Tallis Scholars.

But the Cardinall's Music have just sung adulescentulus.

What's the explanation?

The Present Participle adolescens (stem adolescent-) is used (even in classical Latin) as a noun meaning "a youth" (someone growing up, an adolescent). Adulescens is a common alternative spelling (cf. the Past Participle adultus = grown up = adult).

The suffix -ulus is a regular diminutive for nouns or adjectives. Thus adolescentulus might mean "a mere youth, a 'youngling'".

adoloscentulus is a typo - the second O should be an E.

Or perhaps that's not what you meant in asking the question?

[jean]

I know all that, thanks. But:

I googled it just to see what came up, and there were a number of hits - some relating to this concert, but others to one by the Tallis Scholars.

If I hadn't, I'd have assumed it was just a stray typo.

But look at all these:

http://www.google.co.uk/#sclient=psy...iw=880&bih=559

That's what I was hoping for an explanation for.

[DracoM]

And the concert........?

[jean]

Wonderful, of course. Apsrt from excessive clapping after every piece.

What did you think?

[decantor]

I know all that, thanks. But:

If I hadn't, I'd have assumed it was just a stray typo.

But look at all these:

http://www.google.co.uk/#sclient=psy...iw=880&bih=559

That's what I was hoping for an explanation for.

I crave your forgiveness for explaining what you knew all along. I would have thought that the explanation you seek was all too obvious, but it is clearly not my place to offer it.

[jean]

I would have thought that the explanation you seek was all too obvious, but it is clearly not my place to offer it.

I'm sorry, I did not mean to sound cross.

But if you know why so many different and apparently unrelated sources have come up with this spelling, please do say.

[french frank]

I'm sorry, I did not mean to sound cross.

But if you know why so many different and apparently unrelated sources have come up with this spelling, please do say.

Just coming in on the end of this (so, sorry if I've got the wrong point). One solution for the 'o' rather than 'e' is that if you take more or less any misspelling and google it, you'll be surprised at how many 'hits' you get. However, where people are using/pronouncing the adol- form rather than adul- don't you think there is a tendency to (blast! what's the technical word? jean, you know this) repeat the same vowel. They spell how they're saying it.


Harmonic assimilation.

[jean]

if you take more or less any misspelling and google it, you'll be surprised at how many 'hits' you get.

That is true - though the less well-known the word is, the more the people who do use it are likely to know how spell it correctly - perhaps?

But of course musicians aren't necessarily Classicists. One of the perpetrators here, Peter Phillips, has allowed the most excruciating mistranslations of some texts to be printed and reprinted in concert programmes.

I'm reminded of the tendency for choirs to sing et exultavit spiritus meus... at the start of the Magnificat and later on pronounce ...et exaltavit humiles... in exactly the same way, though it's a quite different word.

However, where people are using/pronouncing the adol- form rather than adul- don't you think there is a tendency to repeat the same vowel. They spell how they're saying it.

But wouldn't the fact that 'adolescent' is such a common English word tend to override that?

[decantor]

I'm sorry, I did not mean to sound cross.

But if you know why so many different and apparently unrelated sources have come up with this spelling, please do say.

Rem non aegre fero: iam meae ipsius iracundiae me poenitet. Accipe quaeso excusationem meam.

My explanation amounts only to what you and FF have already discussed. Latin is not widely understood today, and those who type programme schedules, liner-notes, web-pages and the like are capable of error; even when there is proof-reading, it may not be well informed.. The internet in particular - though not exclusively - perpetuates the error through the ease of copy-and-paste.

It's happened to me in the real world. About eight years ago, one charity typoed my name ridiculously - I became, in effect, Mr SMTIH. As that charity sold on its donor list, so I have been inundated over the years with begging mail-shots addressed to Mr SMTIH. The senders either do not care or do not dare to effect a simple transposition of letters. It gives me the excuse to ignore them - usually. But such solecisms are surely more understandable in an ancient foreign language.