Talk:habemus confitentem reum

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habemus confitentem reum

Obvious meaning after looking at habemus, confitentem and reum. --Romanophile ♞ (contributions) 20:18, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

google books:"habemus confitentem reum" seem to show this is a famous quotation rather than an idiom. Compare it's the economy, stupid. Renard Migrant (talk) 22:01, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

My impression has been that there are quite a few Latin quotations with entries. I haven't worried about them because my focus has been on English and French lately. As a side note, is there a reason we have entries like cave canem? It's a common phrase, but seems pretty SOP to me, with my very limited knowledge of Latin grammar. Andrew Sheedy (talk) 22:59, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

@Andrew Sheedy: it’s sum‐of‐parts, but it could still be used as an example in caveo. ‘Beware of dog’ is per se a fairly common and recognisable saying, but I think that the meaning is obvious. --Romanophile ♞ (contributions) 23:18, 18 March 2016 (UTC)

So should it be deleted and only kept as an example sentence? Andrew Sheedy (talk) 05:07, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

@Andrew Sheedy: I think so, because combining cave with canem doesn’t create an unexpected meaning. If it were up to me, I’d just speedy it, but that might upset the community. That said, it’s perfectly acceptable as a mere example. --Romanophile ♞ (contributions) 08:37, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Some of these may be perfectly acceptable in English (or another language). Caveat emptor is not easily derived from the sum of its parts in English. For a start, there is no English word emptor.

Delete, Wiktionary is not Wikisource and from a dictionary point of view this is not more includable than we have a defendant pleading guilty. Renard Migrant (talk) 12:41, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

We might need this as English. I have found:

• 1677, The Works of the most Reverend Father in God, John Bramhall, p. 392.

  To shew that no nation suffered so much as England, under the Tyranny of the Roman Court, he saith I produce nothing, but the pleasant saying, of a certain Pope. Well, would he have a better witness against the Pope, than the Pope himself? Habemus confitentem reum. He was pleasant indeed, but. . .

Normally I would say that the italicization sets it apart as a foreign phrase, but this writer also seems to italicize many groups of English words. The phrase also appears in a number of older legal dictionaries. bd2412 T 15:23, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

Here is another usage:

• 1810, The Harleian miscellany, page 404:

  [W]e may say of every medicaster, whether a college, or a stage, doctor, habemus confitentem reum; the whole clan of them are homicides, by their own confession.

bd2412 T 15:25, 20 March 2016 (UTC)

• RFD failed as Latin. —Μετάknowledge^{discuss/deeds} 18:08, 29 April 2016 (UTC)