Kitap 8
3.44
But since my first task is to point out the faults to be avoided, I will begin by calling attention to the fault known as κακέμφατον, a term applied to the employment of language to which perverted usage has given an obscene meaning: take, for example, phrases such as ductare exercitus and patrare bellum, ductare might mean ad libidinem abducere. patrare bellum might mean paedicare formosum. which were employed by Sallust in their old and irreproachable sense, but, I regret to say, cause amusement in certain quarters to-day. This, however, is not, in my opinion, the fault of the writer, but of his readers;
3.45
still it is one to be avoided, for we have perverted the purity of language by our own corruption, and there is no course left to us but to give ground before the victorious advance of vice. The same term is also applied in the cases where an unfortunate collocation of words produces an obscene suggestion. For example, in the phrase cum hominibus notis loqui, unless hominibus is placed between cum and notis, we shall commit ourselves to a phrase which will require some apology, since the final letter of the first syllable, which cannot be pronounced without closing the lips, will force us either to pause in a most unbecoming manner, or by assimilation to the n which follows i.e. pronouncing cunnotis. will produce a most objectionable suggestion.
