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- "Ratiocinatores olivas numera…
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147
TIL the expression "bean counter". In German we have "Erbsenzähler" – not specifically for accountants, though, but for people who are pedantic in general.
In English or Latin?
I wonder if there's a Latin version of Scrabble.
- 691
You could play in Latin if you want. It'd be fun. You might need to do a letter-frequency analysis, and maybe raid a second set of tiles... :)
As someone who volunteers in a library, i can confirm that we count olives all day
Ratiociner does exist in French, as a verb, (but very unusual), it means to quibble, using ration (reasoning), and so ratiocinateurs do exist too (substantive).
It's the same Latin root rǎtĭōcǐnāri (« to calculate, to reason »).
Only tangentially related, rationalize is an interesting English verb. It means to convince yourself or others using excuses that you are doing or believing the right thing when it's apparent that you aren't. Does it have the same meaning in French?
Yes I'm French and I knew rationaliser but not ratiociner (which also exists but is very rare).
- 315
Also in italian. We often use raziocinare, it means ability to reason, and raziocinante, able to reason.
- 150
Cicero, De Officiis, 1.18.59 (44 BCE):
Haec igitur et talia circumspicienda sunt in omni officio [et consuetudo exercitatioque capienda], ut boni ratiocinatores officiorum esse possimus et addendo deducendoque videre, quae reliqui summa fiat, ex quo quantum cuique debeatur intellegas.
Though if you're big on the usability of the language, Latin might not be the right one to learn...
- 1288
That can describe almost every bar I've visited in financial districts around the world.
When you think they are going to count books but they end up counting olives
or think they will cook books when they count olives, or cook olives when they should be cooking books or... oh dear
In a previous question about the same translation, I put bookkeeper and it said wrong in favour of "accountant". Now I say accountants, and it says wrong in favour of "bookkeepers". I've reported it
A bookkeeper counting olives... LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO I AM GOING TO LIKE THIS TRANSLATION.
Fun Fact: “Bookkeeper” is t( only woord with 3 consecutive double letters
- 442
Will someone tell me what the heck a 'bookkeper' is? Sincerely, I'm Swedish and have never heard of such a thing
- 150
It's another term for an accountant, from a time when a company's financial obligations were recorded in bound ledger "books." "The books" also became a term for a company's finances; hence "cooking the books" for fradulent accounting done to make finances look better than they really are.
- 338
Literally you won't find a person who keeps books to call him/her a bookkeeper. A bookkeeper will keep working with financial records and writing the records to kinda financial books instead. You can imagine of kinda an accountant for that.
Accounting for inventory could also be part of a bookkeepers job, so if the inventory is olives...
Where did my previous message disappear to?
Anyway, I have never counted olives in my job.
