Talk:Romani ite domum

Romani ite domum

From WP:RfD:

• Romani ite domum → Monty Python's Life of Brian - "Romani ite domum" is a Latin phrase that occurs in a hilarious sketch in the film. That said, I really don't think people would look it up. Well, I did, but that's because I'm a strange guy who likes to look up weird stuff. (If an article about this were to be created, it should probably be created at Romanes eunt domus instead, which is the incorrect Latin that Brian had written before the centurion corrected his grammar.) - furrykef (Talk at me) 08:00, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • Surely if you did, someone else will! So, please throw together a stub! Noel (talk) 15:00, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
    • I agree with Furrykef. The phrase originally used in the film should be the header. Such Latin phrases are quite common in pupils´ papers. As a Latin teacher (ret.) I know what I am talking about. The article should also end differently. As soon as Brian had finished writing the correct phrase a hundred times, another Roman patrol appears and arrest him for writing the phrase in correct Latin. Ontologix (talk) 02:26, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
  • It has occurred that someone did look up this phrase and found a use for this Wiki article in the context of discussing the word "domum": http://wdtprs.com/blog/2015/08/my-view-for-while-domum/#comment-510659 . --Elizdelphi (talk) 22:50, 30 August 2015 (UTC)
• The Monty Python script appears to be using the theme of Mark Gospel chapter 5 where the Roman Legion is told to "go home". -- 92.24.112.238 26 May 2019
  • Legion in Mark 5 is not the name of a Roman military formation, but of a group of evil spirits... AnonMoos (talk) 15:34, 27 May 2019 (UTC)

The imperative is a mood, not a case. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.66.109.125 (talk) 12:26, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

I'm just so pleased this article exists --there's hope. Cramyourspam (talk) 05:34, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Case of domus

Students of Latin often note that domi is the locative of domus in literary classical Latin. The (allative) case construction used in the final formulation is accusative of motion towards

• it could also be noted that "ite domi" is a litteral translation of "go home", and could also be interpreted as simply "go to the house" . A more correct phrase to convey the meaning of "Romans go home!" would be "Romani, ad vestras domus abite!". Though it would probably kill the joke.Purgebandit (talk) 21:42, 16 January 2020 (UTC)

Some might claim that strictly literally, "ite domi" would mean "go at the home" (i.e. do your going there, rather than going to there) -- see Locative case... AnonMoos (talk) 20:50, 18 January 2020 (UTC)

Misses the point a bit

To me, the dialogue is also meant to

1. satirise the then-common experience of strict, grammar-based Latin learning
2. contrast the idea of Classics as Latin grammar with the actualite of Roman rule

Also, John Cleese was a former Latin teacher, so he is sending himself up in this scene. Jim Killock (talk) 07:35, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

I assume that the first item refers to didacticism. This may have been mentioned in one of the sources that I cited for the error section, but if so I overlooked it. Doubtless Romans learned to speak Latin without first learning its grammar, but it's difficult to imagine how anyone could do so now—although that could simply be an effect of the prevalence of didactic methods in language instruction in recent times. If you can find a source that discusses this, I'm sure it would make a good addition to the article.

The article already makes the point of contrasting the centurion's attention to correcting Brian's bad grammar with what we would expect a Roman soldier apprehending an insurrectionist to do, and Jack Halberstam made a comparison between classroom discourse as a distraction from the actualitas of Roman rule with contemporary political rhetoric, although I don't believe he or any of the other sources I consulted suggested that the scene's focus on grammar was intended to satirize the reduction of classics to Latin grammar. This could nonetheless be the case, but again you would need to find a source that says so—if you can, or if you can find it in something that's already cited but overlooked for this purpose, please add it in the appropriate place!

I'm not sure that John Cleese could be described as satirizing himself in the scene, even if he based his performance loosely on his brief experience teaching several subjects, including Latin, simply because few if any members of the film's intended audience would have known that he had ever done so. I suppose it is not impossible that he was making a joke only for the very small number of people who were "in the know", but it seems highly improbable. That it may have given him or those closest to him a laugh to see his ridiculous take on a Latin instructor doesn't necessarily mean that his earlier teaching experience was intended as a target of the joke. That said, I'm sure the fact that he actually taught Latin (among other subjects) at one point in time is relevant and citable in this article—it may simply be that it will have to be described as ironic, rather than that one purpose of the scene was to make light of it.

If you can find sources to cite for any of these ideas—and it certainly looks like there are sources, at least for John Cleese having taught Latin briefly—please add them to the article, and help make it better! P Aculeius (talk) 14:07, 14 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks :) On the first point, it's more that people who had to learn Latin, learnt it in such a dry manner, that it was almost always an awful experience:

“Latin is a language

As dead as dead can be.

It killed the ancient Romans

And now it’s killing me.”

for example. There's a whole lot more one could find on this, eg Churchill on Latin at school; in a sense this is the most recent well known example of this kind of humour.

I'll see if I can find something on Cleese having taught Latin, as this does seem like something that can be found and referenced. Someone ought to write something on the wider subject of Latin in humour and satire I feel! Jim Killock (talk) 13:54, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Saw your additions; they look fine—I just moved them out of the lead, since that should just summarize the article. I thought that the sections describing the sketch should probably precede commentary and sources of inspiration, so I put your paragraphs at the end; but as I put in the edit summary, this isn't absolutely the only way to do it, and this section could possibly go elsewhere in the article.

I believe there are some articles that touch on Latin humour, and perhaps they could be linked to one another better. There's probably room for much more than we have now! My own experience with Latin was no worse than trying to learn French, and I felt better about my pronunciation, plus I was more inspired to learn it. I still failed to learn enough of it, but I pull my books out from time to time and have made progress. At least I can usually make sense of most (transcribed) funerary inscriptions given time and effort, and that serves me well! P Aculeius (talk) 15:44, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

That's fine. Yes, some other links between things would make sense. Jim Killock (talk) 17:36, 15 April 2023 (UTC)

Vocative

Vocativos complures are crossing my mind just now, indeed. Tuvalkin (talk) 00:40, 6 August 2023 (UTC)

Unnatural phrasing

Latin Wikipedia points out that the more natural phrasing would be Romani auferte vos domum, even if Romani ite domum is technically correct. Is there a source for this? Should this be mentioned here? שונרא (talk) 00:13, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

It might be how you would say it if you were an actual Roman, but the point is that Brian was in a Jewish resistance cell and using a slogan derived anachronistically from 20th century protests in a particular phrasing. In Latin Wikipedia it might make sense to distinguish between what was written for the film, and what a native Latin speaker might have written instead. In English Wikipedia it seems like an unnecessary detail that would require too much effort to explain, given that it's neither part of the grammar actually discussed in the film, nor part of works of literature describing the scene. P Aculeius (talk) 00:43, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

Documenting persistent vandalism

Over the last year, a variety of edits have deleted or, in one instance, recast the same paragraph of text, usually with edit summaries that allege bias or irrelevance or make no sense at all; for instance the first reason given referred to "self-promotion/advertisement", although there is no evidence that the author cited is a contributor to the article. All of these edits were undertaken by users who were not logged in, using various IP addresses, with little or no history of constructive edits to other articles. Given the narrow focus of the changes, I believe that one person is responsible for this disruption, which has constituted a significant portion of the activity for this article since the end of 2023's deletion discussion. Constructive edits have also occurred during this period, but usually by editors who are logged in, and who have a history of constructive edits to other articles.

The relevant paragraph currently reads:

The film's satirical use of classroom discourse as a technical exercise to distract from the realities of Roman imperialism has also been compared with the contemporary political phenomenon of diverting attention from serious social issues by focusing attention on details, such as argument over the use of gender-neutral pronouns as a means of distracting attention from discriminatory practices, harassment, and legal disabilities affecting transgender persons.

Note: this section was originally created on January 9, 2024 for the purpose of documenting persistent single-purpose vandalism over the course of several months, and requesting page protection, which was subsequently granted. I've updated it following a substantially similar series of edits on April 6, 2024, and may do so again if this cycle repeats. I do not know whether the author of the April 6 edits is the same as any of the IP editors who performed the same edits in the past, but given the timing, it seems to be the same person who commented on this section as an IP editor shortly before the first edit on April 6. The times given in this table are those shown in the edit history when I view it in the Eastern U.S., and so are four to five hours earlier than UTC, which appears automatically in signature lines. P Aculeius (talk) 12:59, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

• 8:25, April 6, 2024 User:Takeshi357 repeated the previous deletion; edit summary: "Activist vandalism".
• 8:20, April 6, 2024 User:Takeshi357 deleted most of the paragraph; edit summary: "thinly veiled activism".
• 6:58, April 6, 2024 User:Takeshi357 deleted the entire paragraph; edit summary: "Irrelevant information to the subject used as a tangent for LGBT activism in the disguise of "cultural significance"."
• 13:08, January 9, 2024 Special:Contributions/167.88.21.51, deleted the entire paragraph; no edit summary; no other contributions by this IP.
• 13:28, December 25, 2023 Special:Contributions/74.64.100.109, replaced the words "The film's... has been compared with" "Queer activists have compared the", and "social issues" with "LGBT issues"; edit summary: "Fixed sentence order"; fewer than 50 edits attributed to this IP; not clear whether any of them were by the same person.
• 10:46, December 13, 2023 Special:Contributions/90.242.218.182, deleted the entire paragraph; edit summary: ""Far fetched, ludicrous, and completely non-notable"; no other contributions by this IP.
• 2:22, November 26, 2023 Special:Contributions/82.129.98.131, deleted the entire paragraph; edit summary: "Duplication"; three other edits attributed to this IP, all between November 26 and December 1, 2023; one of these was to delete a reference to the Quran, which I've just reverted, after checking that the mention was correct.
• 8:42, August 11, 2023 Special:Contributions/146.198.82.243, deleted the entire paragraph; edit summary: "removed paragraph of irrelevant pseudoscience"; no other contributions by this IP.
• 7:16, June 9, 2023 Special:Contributions/2A00:23C4:4A8A:5601:8CE1:33BC:B9B1:8484, deleted the entire paragraph; edit summary: "Biased POV, irrelevant to article"; no other contributions by this IP.
• 8:22, May 25, 2023 Special:Contributions/170.148.215.161, deleted the entire paragraph; edit summary: "removed irrelevant content"; fewer than 30 edits attributed to this IP; not clear whether any of the others were by the same person.
• 16:15, May 14, 2023 Special:Contributions/79.13.155.198, deleted the entire paragraph; edit summary: "Fixed informations"; no other contributions by this IP.
• 13:09, April 22, 2023 Special:Contributions/23.149.32.47, deleted the entire paragraph; edit summary: "removed paragraph of dubious relevance/significance"; fewer than 20 edits attributed to this IP; not clear whether any of the others were by the same person.
• 10:43, April 11, 2023 Special:Contributions/51.52.8.226, deleted the entire paragraph; edit summary: "What?! This has nothing to do with Romani ite domum, and is rubbish in the first place"; fewer than 50 edits attributed to this IP; one of them on April 21, 2023 removed a footnote about a singer having come out as transgender, without an edit summary; another on May 26, 2023 left a rude message on the talk page of a user who's been inactive since 2007; another left a sarcastic comment in an article about the background of someone appointed to address racism (which the user changed to "inequity").
• 4:46, April 4, 2023 Special:Contributions/78.35.147.78, deleted the entire paragraph; edit summary: "Remove unrelated self-promotion/advertisment"; no other contributions by this IP.

It's not clear whether this vandal's target is Jack Halberstam and anything written by him, or queer or transgender issues (there may be such a pattern here, but I'm not sure, since it's hard to know who was responsible for some of the loosely-related edits to other articles or a retired editor's talk page), or social justice generally. The fact that the reasons given keep changing, and never include a clear explanation or lead to a talk page discussion, seems to demonstrate that there is no concrete basis for the editor's objection to this paragraph. It's frustrating to see the same act of vandalism repeated every few weeks with another unclear or nonsensical edit summary. P Aculeius (talk) 20:14, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't know anything about the anonymous IP editor, but the paragraph certainly seems to have an extremely tangential relationship to the article's subject, and could violate WP:COATRACK... AnonMoos (talk) 01:30, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

The paragraph concerns a discussion of the scene as a parallel for a recent sociopolitical phenomenon: using the minutiae of a situation as a distraction from a deeper social issue that goes unaddressed because of misplaced focus on details that are ultimately unimportant. The discussion may not be of intrinsically great importance, but then the film itself isn't very serious either. Yet it reached--and continues to reach--a vast audience, because it portrays historical fiction in an eminently relateable way, and so in Halberstam's book, this scene is used to demonstrate a peculiar rhetorical trap that, unlike the events of the film, has great cultural significance today.

But that's not what this discussion was started for. It's here to document repeated vandalism so that the article could be presented for either pending-changes protection or semiprotection. The guidelines for protection requests suggested that extended discussion of the request could be placed on the article's talk page, so that's what I did. Documenting the occurrences and pattern of repetition would have been too lengthy and detailed to post on the article protection request page. Since the request was granted, this section remains largely to explain why the request was made and granted. P Aculeius (talk) 01:58, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

If what is being deleted is only very tangential at best to this article's subject matter, then it's extremely relevant to a discussion as to whether or not deleting it is indeed vandalism... AnonMoos (talk) 02:14, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

I'd say it's not at all tangential for a scene demonstrating how relevant social commentary is diverted into a grammar lesson, that does nothing to resolve the underlying social issues, to be used as an example of a rhetorical device being employed in current sociological debates. The argument that it's not vandalism if you don't think that the point is important enough to make, even though multiple editors tell you that it is, is a bit like saying that Brian didn't vandalize the building because the Romans shouldn't have been there in the first place. Here the vandal doesn't even seem to be able to make a coherent argument on the talk page, and keeps changing the reason provided, or giving none at all.

The fact that one of the edits attempted to recast the discussion by saying that it was only queer activists who would make such a comparison, and that it wasn't a social issue, but merely an LGBT issue, combined with the fact that some of the IP's also removed a reference to someone being transsexual in another article, changed "racism" to "inequity" in another, and deleted a reference to the Quran in a third--despite some uncertainty over which of the edits by each IP were by the same person who was vandalizing this article--strongly suggests that the vandal is a reactionary, whose real problem is with the statement that transgender people face harassment or discrimination, and that all of the complaints about "nonsense", "duplication", and "pseudoscience" are arguments with Jack Halberstam and his book, not with the relationship of the paragraph to the article.

Repeatedly deleting material from an article under false pretenses, because you disagree with the opinion of the source being cited, while concealing one's identity and refusing to engage in any detailed or meaningful conversation, seems to be the very definition of "vandalism". P Aculeius (talk) 02:41, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

I don't know or really care about the anonymous IP, but I see material with a more direct connection to an article's topic than what's at issue here deleted from "In popular culture" sections of an article all the time. See Talk:Carol of the Bells#In Popular Culture, use in Dr. Who, in just the past day or so -- and of course, the song "Carol of the Bells" apparently actually does occur in the Dr. Who episode, while the "Romani ite domum" section of the Life of Brian movie does not refer or allude to transgender issues in any way (whatever the movie has to say about such issues -- not referred to with the word "transgender" at the time, of course -- is contained in the Stan/Loretta segment). Again, consult WP:COATRACK... AnonMoos (talk) 10:31, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

This is not an "in popular culture" section listing dozens of passing mentions without any significance. I have tried to explain on multiple occasions that this scene appears as a teaching tool in the work selected—which itself is not a mere collection of trivia or TV episode with no cultural relevance beside its own fanbase. The particular relevance of this scene is not to popular culture, but to didacticism and rhetoric specifically, and it has been described and included in various works not merely to say, "hey, I watched this too!", but to make comparisons between the actions and dialogue of this particular scene and modern social and political movements and debates. I'm not sure what's so confusing about this.

The fact that the scene itself makes no mention of transgender issues seems completely irrelevant to the comparison being made in the Halberstam book. Many things have cultural relevance to other topics, persons, or events that were completely unknown at the time they occurred. It would be an extreme position to argue that even detailed discussion of a thing for illustrative purposes is no more than "fancruft" illustrating the author's familiarity with something. That's what a passing mention is; this isn't that. P Aculeius (talk) 12:55, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Then use a different comparison. 2001:14BB:AB:C759:50E0:CE3B:404D:48FE (talk) 10:55, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Given the timing, you seem to be the same person as User:Takeshi357. This article is not the place to pursue a vendetta against "LGBT activism". This article has nothing to do with activism, and despite your accusations, I am not an activist. The subject of this persistent edit war was included in the article because it's a discussion of this article's topic in a contemporary context, and the only reason for the edit war seems to be an unreasoning demand that because Brian isn't gay or transgender, nothing to do with LGBT issues can be mentioned here.

But that's not why it's here: it's here because a notable author has made use of a widely-known scene in which an insignificant issue (grammar) is used to distract from the underlying issues (anti-Roman sentiment, vandalism) to compare with how the furor over the use of unconventional pronouns (grammar) has been used as a distraction from the underlying issues (transphobia, legal disabilities imposed upon transgender persons). The fact that Halberstam makes this comparison in his book is relevant to the topic, whether or not on thinks his comparison is apt, or whether one agrees with his point, and irrespective of one's position on LGBT issues. You can think he's way off base, making something out of nothing, or hold any other opinion—but that doesn't change the fact that a notable author has made this comparison, or that making it is relevant to this topic's significance in a contemporary cultural context. P Aculeius (talk) 12:48, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Whatever -- You're quite adept at attributing evil motives to others, and daring other people to knock the chip off your shoulder, but rather poor at demonstrating why the whole thing has any particular relevance to this article beyond the most tangential... AnonMoos (talk) 19:38, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Not sure where you're getting either of those from, other than repeating what I already responded to three months ago. I just explained why it's here again, and don't think it could or needs to be made any clearer—the fact that this is the only thing anybody seems to have a problem with or wants to do anything about seems to indicate some animus against Jack Halberstam or his book or the point he was making—I can't tell which. I'm not the one who charged in here accusing me of being an activist writing thinly-veiled activism, neither of which is true. I have no particular interest in or connection to LGBT activism, besides wanting everyone to be treated fairly and with dignity. My point about Halberstam using this scene to illustrate a point about contemporary issues stands. It was not a passing mention, but a clear and nuanced comparison between what occurs during the scene and a current political debate, and that makes it relevant to this article, because it illustrates the ongoing influence of this article's subject in contemporary culture. P Aculeius (talk) 17:33, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Personally while I can speak from personal experience that the misdirection tactic described here definitely exists, it is not one limited to the sphere of politics, and there's definitely no reason whatsoever why it needs to be a specific, not to mention obviously controversial, example - and I still do not think it ultimately has any real relevance to the subject (apart from it being part of the joke), so I would still vote for just deleting the whole paragraph. Takeshi357 (talk) 12:32, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

What's controversial about it? The fact that some people might disagree with Halberstam's comparison? That doesn't affect the fact that he made it, or whether it shows that the subject of this article continues to have some cultural relevance. He could be completely mistaken, but the fact that the argument is made is relevant to this article, irrespective of whether you or I agree with it. Or is it that some people might mistakenly assume that Halberstam is saying that Brian or some of the other characters are gay or transgender, or that Monty Python was saying something about LGBT issues? Other people's mistaken understanding of what a scene is used to illustrate doesn't make the argument irrelevant.

I don't understand what you're getting at with "apart from it being part of the joke". Halberstam isn't saying that LGBT issues are part of a joke in The Life of Brian, he's saying the use of didacticism as a distraction from the underlying issue in Brian is similar to how serious discussion of LGBT issues today are ignored when someone brings up "zhe", "hir", or "them", or (and this isn't in Halberstam, as far as I know) litter boxes in school bathrooms for "students who identify as cats", a non-issue that everyone's heard of and has an opinion about despite no evidence that such things ever happened. But again, you don't have to agree that Halberstam's comparison is correct. The fact that he makes it is what's relevant to this article: it shows the ongoing relevance of the subject in contemporary culture (and it might be cited for completely opposite reasons—against LGBT issues, or why the internet is broken; those would also be relevant, provided there's a serious point being made, and not just a passing mention, as if to say (and I said this earlier in the discussion), "I saw this movie too!" P Aculeius (talk) 17:33, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

References

Play on "Yankee go home!" / "Ami go home!"

It is strange that there is nothing said about this obvious context. There is not even a "Yankee go home!" page on Wikipedia. It only forwards to Anti-Americanism. I'll leave the rest to Billy Wilder:

"When the Southern belle is confronted about her foolishness in the matter of helping him blow up anti-American "Yankee Go Home" balloons (how the couple met) she simply replies with, "Why, that ain't anti-American, it's anti-Yankee... And where I come from, everybody's against the Yankees ...""

2A01:C23:B96D:1D00:1CBB:CB92:B2C6:A24A (talk) 19:32, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

That certainly comes to mind, and it could have been omitted because to the article's original authors, it seemed too obvious to require explation. However, I'm not aware of any published source that makes the connection, and without even a proper history of the phrase, I can't feel certain that similar phrases weren't used of other peoples. That would make it hard to connect the phrase to this article without a reliable source. If you can find a published source that does so, it might be worth including here. P Aculeius (talk) 23:52, 23 April 2024 (UTC)