Latin Term Used as a Noun

Maryn

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It's a shame I even think up dialogue like this, but this first draft has a line that I don't know how to italicize.

I would ordinarily italicize a Latin phrase, even if it's well known, like Et tu, Brute?

But my character is using a Latin imperative--an order with the understood subject you, like Reach for the sky--as if it's a verb. A past tense verb.

So how the hell would you editors and grammarians italicize this line of dialogue, spoken by a blue collar character who used to wrestle on the same high school team as the person he's talking about.

"He was bigger than me, next weight class up, but if I watched close, I’d see when he messed up and left himself open. If I carped the diem, I could pin him every time."

Maryn, who knows losing the Latin would solve everything, but she kind of likes it

 
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I might do it "If I carped the diem,..." but I have no idea if that's how anyone's house style would do it.

Marissa, who studied way too much Latin in high school and college.

That is exactly what I'd do.
 

Chase

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Bacchus

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Of course carpe is the imperative of carpere, and you can't have a past-perfect of an imperative so "carped the diem" isn't actually Latin... I would still italicise it as above though, "carped the diem" (opinion not style-fact)
 

frimble3

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I know nothing of grammar, but I know a cool line when I hear it. Italicizing it would highlight for the reader that he isn't just misspeaking, or misspelling.
And it says stuff about your character: those two words are a well-known phrase that any alert high-schooler might have lodged in his brain, but it's a clever play on words, under his stressful circumstances. I've known guys like that.
 

Maryn

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Thanks for the useful input, everyone. I did it as "I carped the diem" in the first draft, and I think that's how it'll stand.

I wonder if readers have any idea how much thought goes into a single sentence. Probably not.

Maryn, escaping the world by writing