63 Colloquial and Li.. - Ganino.com

28 rolando ferri and philomen probert
ex hac versus, ex hac eadem dispares numeri conficiuntur; ex hac haec etiam
soluta variis modis multorumque generum oratio; non enim sunt alia sermonis,
alia contentionis verba, neque ex alio genere ad usum cotidianum, alio ad scaenam
pompamque sumuntur; sed ea nos cum iacentia sustulimus e medio, sicut
mollissimam ceram ad nostrum arbitrium formamus et fingimus. (De orat. 3.177)
Out of this [i.e. speech] verses are composed, out of this irregular rhythms, out of
this prose too in various manners and of many varieties; for there is not one set
of words for conversation, another for debate, nor are words taken from one sort
for everyday use and from another for stage and festival, but when we have taken
these as they lie in front of us, we form and fashion them to our will like the softest
wax. 24
3 grammarians and commentators
We have thus seen that rhetorical theory assigns some place to ‘ordinary
language’ as a basis for at least the simple style, and helps to identify some
of the perceived characteristics of ‘ordinary language’. Rhetorical theory is
however clear that even the simple style is an artistic approximation, artistic
language disguised as spoken language.
Less satisfactory evidence is available on how prepared Roman scholars
were to recognise the existence of different registers in the spoken language
itself, and to deal with the more informal registers of linguistic communication
in Latin. Many usages were classified as substandard, without regard
for the level of education of the speakers involved, but evidence for a more
nuanced approach to informal communication is difficult to assemble. 25
Yet some discussion always went on among the learned; some advocated
a simple, unaffected use of the language at least for simple, everyday
written communication, and perhaps pleaded for such use even in polite
conversation.
Quintilian, for example, reflects some debate about the acceptability
of evolved forms, such as caldus for calidus (Augustus described the latter
as ‘hideous’: see below), 26 and seems inclined to accept the current
24 Gregory Hutchinson draws our attention also to the Elder Seneca’s remark (Con. 7.5.9) Brutus
Bruttedius cotidiano verbo significanter usus est ‘Brutus Bruttedius pointedly used an everyday word’.
The use of significanter here suggests that the use of a cotidianum verbum did not automatically have
special significance.
25 This is obviously different from the implicit information about Roman writers’ sensitivity to register
which we can glean from the actual written texts themselves, for example a corpus of letters by the
same person, addressing different people, as most notably in the case of Cicero, or the snatches of
dialogue included in Cicero’s orations, or in his letters, on which see Hutchinson 1998: 112–38.
26 Apud Quint. Inst. 1.6.19 = Augustus, Epistulae fr. xxiii Malcovati: sed Augustus quoque in epistulis ad
C. Caesarem scriptis emendat quod is ‘calidum’ dicere quam ‘caldum’ malit, non quia id non sit Latinum,