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Hail Mary has been changed

ANGELICO, Fra Annunciation, c1450
The Hail Mary has been changed. Or rather, the Swedish translation has. Having gone to the trouble of learning the old one I am not going to be caught out again so it is Latin for me in future. At least one can be sure that no committee is going to get together and come up with yet another translation.

AVE MARIA, gratia plena, Dominus tecum. Benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui, Iesus. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc, et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.

Here is the rest of the Rosary. You can download it, format and print on a card. It needs to be in two columns to fit on one side of A4. But when one thinks about it, the prayer is undignified. Hailing is what you do when one wants to get a taxi driver to stop and pick you up. Our Lady is not a taxi and I have never heard of anyone calling "Ave" when they wanted one.

18 Black cab

Kommentarer

jaykay sa…
Erm, no, you wouldn't use "Ave" to a taxi, because you're not addressing or greeting the taxi directly, for a start!

English works on many levels, as I'm sure you know. The verb "to hail" as in to call a taxi is now practically archaic. No-one really refers to "hailing" anyone or anything anymore. But one should not confuse this sense of the verb with the vocative use of "hail", which is a greeting, nothing else. It's certainly not undignified to use it. It's archaic, certainly, but then so is the rest of the English text, with it's 16th century usages.
27 februari 2013 kl. 16:08
Physiocrat sa…
Nice pic of a GNR (I) 4-4-0 with a somersault signal in the background. I last heard the term "hail a cab" about twenty years ago. I can't think of another way of saying what you would do if you want to take a vacant cab not at a regular taxi rank.

English is a bit funny in its inconsistency. Olive oil is made of olives, maize oil is made from maize, but baby oil?
28 februari 2013 kl. 00:12
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