Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2015 June 10

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June 10

TO&E

What does this mean? I have a number of board wargames which use this phrase to refer to certain combat formations. What does it actually mean? KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 12:12, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Table of Organisation and Equipment [1]. Mikenorton (talk) 12:21, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Resolved

Latin word and case choice: command to "begin"/"start"

Hello - Trying to wrap my head around Latin conjugations today without any training. Could use some help. I'm trying to figure out what a Roman teacher would say to a student or a group of students in order to make them begin or start on a test or exercise -- the equivalent of what would be "Start!" or "Begin!" in English. So I'm guessing that means I'm looking for the second-person present-tense imperative form of a verb. Two questions:

1. Which verb better fits the circumstances? initio or incipio?
2. Depending on the answer to that question, it looks like the answer would be either initia/initiate or incipe/incipite, depending on one student or many. Is there anything I'm missing?

Thanks. --Brasswatchman (talk) 18:48, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

I believe that initio means "I originate, I am the beginning of" where as incipio means more "I begin [an activity]". So I think the more appropriate command would be incipe or incipite. Marco polo (talk) 20:55, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Biblia Sacra Vulgata (the Holy Vulgate Bible) uses incipe at Deuteronomy 2:31.

—Wavelength (talk) 21:13, 10 June 2015 (UTC) and 21:19, 10 June 2015 (UTC) and 21:30, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Perfect. Thank you both. (How do I mark this as resolved?) --Brasswatchman (talk) 22:58, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

You can copy the wikicode for "Resolved" from the previous section. (That section is now the one with the heading "TO&E", but archiving might change the order of the sections.) I prefer to avoid using the wikicode for "Resolved" (because answerers might provide additional information), but you are free to use it.

—Wavelength (talk) 23:03, 10 June 2015 (UTC) and 00:04, 11 June 2015 (UTC)