This from a newspaper article about rude drivers. I can't find the phrase anywhere on line. What the heck does it mean?

You hear the siren of an emergency vehicle. You and everyone else in both directions pull to the right to allow the ambulance or fire truck to get to the emergency. After the emergency vehicle passes, you try to continue on your way, only to find a stream of cars hot on the trail of the ambulance won't let you. See ya, suckers! Carpe agito!

Not sure what the author intended. Carpe is the second person imperative of carpo 'to seize, grab' (as in the well-known phrase carpe diem 'seize the day') and agito is the first person present indicative active of agito, meaning 'I drive, drive to and fro'. Not sure they make much sense together. Perhaps the author just looked things up in a Latin-English dictionary.

Carpe agito. Kind of like seize the madness.

It reminds me of one of my favorite lines from Roger Zelazny's A Night in the Lonesome October. The story is about the periodic contest of good versus evil from the point of view of the animal familiars of the participants. The dog familiar ends up in the presence of the great lord of cats, who tells him as they part ways, "Carpe baculum". Seize the stick.

I've heard "carpe pescum" a number of times, which supposedly means "seize the fish". I've also heard "carpe nostrum", which is said to mean "seize the night", although nostrum appears to be "remedy", and have little if anything to do with night.

My guess was that the writer was aiming for "sieze the rage" (as in road rage)but has messed up his translation. A bit of research suggests

carpe furor

though I'm guessing I might have some endings wrong there.

Maybe

carpe furorum ?

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

Carpe piscem (or, piscim).

Carpe furorem (or rabiem).

Carpe nostrum could mean 'seize ours'.

Ah well, I was guessing at the accusitive ending anyway, though I thought there'd be an "m" involved somewhere. At least I got the right stem.

I'm guessing that he was thinking
agito->agitated->enraged->rage

but I could be over thinking it. He might, as I think you suggested, just have looked up drive in a Latin/English dictionary and meant "seize the driving" without checking the grammar. From the context though "seize the rage" seemed to make more sense.

Agito in Italian is "churn."

An order to a milkmaid to make butter ???

The adjectival (past passive participial) form of agito is agitatus.

I guess carpe agitatum could mean 'seize the angry guy/thing'.

quote:

"Carpe baculum". Seize the stick.

Or seize the dick: a baculum is a penis bone.

quote:

Originally posted by neveu:

quote:

"Carpe baculum". Seize the stick.

Or seize the dick: a baculum is a penis bone.

A motto for adolescent boys everywhere.

quote:

Originally posted by neveu:

quote:

"Carpe baculum". Seize the stick.

Or seize the dick: a baculum is a penis bone.

Well that certainly provides a new slant to the phrase argumentum ad baculum!

In case you want to know the standard dirty term in Latin, it is mentula. Carpe mentulam! It was rather an unpolite term and only occurs in a few ribald poets, e.g., Martial. The other gender's term is cunnus. Strangely enough, the membrum virile is of the feminine gender and the other term is masculine.

Interesting wikipedia aside on baculum:

quote:

In the Bible's Book of Genesis, Adam's rib is removed to create Eve. Biblical Hebrew does not have a word for penis. Some (Gilbert and Zevit 2001) have suggested this story is an explanatory myth to explain the absence of a baculum in the male human, rather than a missing rib (in light of the fact that men and women have the same number of ribs).

baculum

Cognate with peg according to some people. But unfortunately not accepted by everyone.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: goofy,

peg

Interesting. A Victorian British term is pego. Not sure if it's still in use.

quote:

Originally posted by zmježd:
peg

Interesting. A Victorian British term is pego. Not sure if it's still in use.

Yes, I remember pego from Alan Moore's wonderful comic From Hell.

And actually peg and baculum are in The American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots from the PIE root *bak "staff used for support", so it's not as unaccepted as I supposed.

quote:

Originally posted by Seanahan:
I've heard "carpe pescum" a number of times, which supposedly means "seize the fish".

Carpe carp.

I'm sorry I missed this interesting discussion. It reminds me of the discussion we had awhile back about the word "abaculo." From Wikipedia, the homologue to the baculum in female mammels is the "clitoridis" (which makes sense) or the "baubellum." I haven't heard of the latter.