Talk:Canes pugnaces

Proposal to #Redirect article

• I propose this article be redirected to Dogs in warfare.Bless sins (talk) 16:33, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

• Agreed. This is just a Latin dictionary term; there's nothing notable about it.--Yolgnu (talk) 03:44, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

• Disagree - Canes pugnaces, is a Latin phrase, which are allowed to have their own articles at Wikipedia. In addition, the Latin term is often used for a certain type of dog in ancient times, particularly Ancient Rome. It should have it's own article. Thanks Green Squares (talk) 12:15, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
• Latin phrases have their own articles at Wikipedia if they're commonly used in English. This just seems to be Latin for dogs in warfare, not a phrase commonly used in English, so merging this content into that article is appropriate. +Angr 05:53, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi An, would you please provide the link to the policy you are quoting. In addition, Canes pugnaces is used quite often in the English language, within the dog community. I notice many of the words in the category Latin phrase are less often used than the term Canes pugnaces. Thank you. Green Squares (talk) 11:36, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm not quoting any policy, I'm quoting actual practice. There's nothing in the article Canes pugnaces that couldn't be discussed in Dogs in warfare. As for its usage in English, I have to wonder what on earth "the dog community" is. +Angr 19:56, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi An, the actual practice is that Latin phrases are allowed to have their own article. This Latin term Canes pugnaces has a definite meaning and is often used in English sentences to describe Dogs of War or Fighting Dogs, from antiquity. Green Squares (talk) 23:23, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

It's not used that often according to a search of Google Books. About half the citations I found were in a list of words with a comma between canis and pugnax. Many of the remainder were sources in Italian that used the Latin phrase. I have yet to find the phrase actually used in a Latin text. This expression is purely a description in Latin, and not a fixed term, since the Latin pugnax means "fond of fighting". So, canis pugnax is (quite literally) "(a) dog fond of fighting". I agree that this article should be a Redirect. --EncycloPetey (talk) 03:29, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment: Well I get a fair number:

• Books 1 - 100 of 193 on Canes pugnaces. (0.10 seconds) and
• Books 1 - 100 of 414 on Canis pugnax. (0.13 seconds) Green Squares (talk) 11:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

  Most of those are quoting a single author, who says that dogs come in two groups: canes venatici (hunting dogs) and canes pugnaces (fighting dogs). Also note that many of your returns have the two components, but not together as a single phrase or even in the same sentence. When I do a search for the phrase I get 19 returns total [1], and some of those are separated by a comma. None of what you've presented does anything to suggest the term has any standing power in Latin or should be anything other than a redirect. --EncycloPetey (talk) 23:17, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

• Here comes a guideline-based argument for merging: This tiny stub is a content fork of the relevant section in dogs in warfare. On neither side is there enough information for a full article; until that changes merging this stub seems to be the only reasonable solution. --Hans Adler (talk) 23:41, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
• Agree with the redirect, though, frankly, the citations at dogs in warfare's history section of sources such as "Pitbull411.com" clearly indicates that cleanup is needed there. In any case, dogs in warfare is the logical place for the better content that we must hope for. Wareh (talk) 02:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
  • I agree. It might be harder to clean up the section in dogs in warfare, as we might theoretically face another unreasonable editor or two there. But the point of the content fork prohibition is exactly to prevent circumvention of such potentially tedious consensus-building exercises. --Hans Adler (talk) 10:09, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
• Agree as it is clearly a content fork of Dogs in warfare. Dougweller (talk) 07:55, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

The phrase has been used by modern writers trying to distinguish between different uses of dogs in Roman times. It isn't clear, at least to me, whether any Latin author uses the phrase. It doesn't mean "dogs of war", anyway: it means "fierce dogs" or (if this concept is valid for Roman times) "fighting dogs". However, I wouldn't object to a redirect to Dogs in warfare. [Added afterwards: yes, Strabo says that the Celts used dogs in warfare.] Andrew Dalby 13:00, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

If there are no other objections, I shall redirect this shortly to Dogs in warfare. I've returned it to the 'canes' title. Dougweller (talk) 12:38, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Ok, 2 days later and I've just done it. I note the addition of references, but why the repetition of the same text containing "canis, pugnax" (note the comma) is supposed to mean I have no idea. If the editor wants to add them again, please discuss on the talk page of Dogs in warfare with translations of course so that everyone understands what the Latin says. Dougweller (talk) 12:48, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Spelling

Canis does show the odd i-stem form (editors have Cicero say canis venaticos diceres), but in the nominative? That would be doubtful at best in Classical Latin, and I can't see why early Latin would be at issue here. What are you thinking here, Green Squares? Wareh (talk) 00:25, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

He also added this ultrareliable source, which misspells the word this way. It looks as if he wants to make the point that even on the orthography of common Latin words he trusts a random dog website more than the members of WP:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome. I think that this kind of bold move should earn him a last warning for WP:POINT violations, the next infraction being followed by a block. --Hans Adler (talk) 01:13, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Okay Hans Adler, now you have me scared -:) Green Squares (talk) 11:36, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

The word Canis, seems be spelled both "Canis" and "Canes", I cannot determine for sure, which is correct at this point in time. Both seem to used. Green Squares (talk) 11:35, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

In other words, you changed the article's name without being sure which is correct or discussing it on the talk page although other editors are active? And so far as I can tell, you haven't noticed the difference between "some text canis pugnaces some text " and "some text canis, pugnaces some text". Dougweller (talk) 11:51, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Green Squares, the comment by Wareh above was probably too subtle for you; trying to put you into your place by telling you somewhat diplomatically that you are wrong and that there is a lot you don't understand.

I only spent one year learning Latin some time ago, and I have only a tiny Latin dictionary. But several of the people you are in conflict with are active in WP:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome and presumably have spent many years studying Latin and read books in Latin for fun. I know that I know virtually nothing about Latin compared to them. How much do you know? Did you try to teach them a lesson? That they didn't spot that the spelling of a very common Latin word was wrong, but you caught the mistake because of the high quality of your favourite sources?

It seems that you know absolutely nothing about Latin, not even that unlike in English, in Latin adjectives have a singular form and a plural form, such as pugnax and pugnaces, and that you don't have a free choice between them. You have replaced the plural form of the Latin word for dog by the singular form, but you left the Latin word for combative in the plural. The closest English equivalent would be replacing "many dogs" by "many dog".

You have no excuse for this move other than perhaps the Dunning-Kruger effect (simplified version: sufficiently incompetent people can't understand the full extent of their incompetence and consequently think they are far more competent than average): Before your absurd move this very article started with the explanation that canes pugnaces is the plural of canis pugnax.

In other words, not satisfied with your success rewriting history according to the "German historian"[2] Dieter Fleig, you have now started rewriting Latin grammar according to a random dog website. --Hans Adler (talk) 12:29, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Hans Adler, yes, thank you for putting me in my place -:) Green Squares (talk) 17:01, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Keeping article

Hi, I think with the number of citations in the article "Canis pugnaces" it can stay as a separate article. This is a Latin phrase, word, term or idiom, which is allowed to have it's own separate article at Wikipedia. Thank you. Green Squares (talk) 14:03, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Some of them are the same -- what does "canis, pugnax" mean if you think it's a phrase, word, term or idiom. Others, like the web page, are clearly not reliable sources as has been pointed out to you. The paucity of sources also distinguishes this from the category you are pointing to. Even "Amylacea" comes up with 1333 hits on Google Books, as opposed to 3 for the phrase "canis pugnaces". Or about 10 for "canes pugnaces" depending on what you count as duplicates. Dougweller (talk) 14:29, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

In fact, four of them are the same poem, by the Renaissance poet Politian, about a savage dog - this shows nothing about ancient usage; the rest all appear to be citations of the same article from 1828 which proposed a Latin name for the bulldog, off topic for the former article. We could write such an article, but it might fail notability. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:41, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I should note, however, that GS has demonstrated that this is not a Latin conventional phrase; it has no conventional meaning (unless someone has claimed Politian is writing about Heracles and the Bulldog), and is no more common than any other noun and adjective. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:46, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you Septentrionalis for the voice of reason. Please, Green Squares, take the time to digest what Sept. has said. Wareh (talk) 01:17, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Is it possible that someone was trying to translate bits of Shakespeare into Latin? (I mean, it's fun to try to do that with Julius Caesar, which is what I thought of when I saw "dogs of war".) Adam Bishop (talk) 02:52, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Politian was a century before Shakespeare; but there may be a connection the other way. There's a long passage in Midsummer Night's Dream (I think) which shows that Shakespeare read dog books; probably Xenophon. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:45, 15 June 2009 (UTC)