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- "Rapide exeunt."
17 Comments
I'm noticing a lot of cases only the Latinate borrowing in English is accepted: Here 'they exit', when 'go out' is a perfectly good and the literal translation of ex-eō, ex-īre.
Elsewhere to my repeated annoyance 'rapide' is often only accepted as 'rapid' instead of 'quickly', which seems to me the more neutral English word for something moving very quickly or in a short time (literally or figuratively). Of course, in some contexts 'rapid' might actually be the correct word for the sense, but simply defaulting to it in all cases is sloppy translation technique.
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It's almost bound to happen. We are being taught what you might call the greatest Romance language, by teachers who are speakers of Romance languages - or who are, at least, quite keen on them. There is much to be said for choosing a more everyday English word, as I am making an effort to do in this writing, but it is hard to do, as so much of English now hangs on Latinate words.