OpenOffice.org has been forked

[Amedee Van Gasse (ub)]

Sorry, the original mail got lost in the void so I'm replying to the wrong
person. I'm aware of that.

On Thu, September 30, 2010 19:48, Martin Webster wrote:
> Hello,
>
> On Thu, 2010-09-30 at 18:00 +1000, Basil Chupin wrote:

>> I have a printing plate which prints "Ex Libris" to be pasted into the
>> books which I own.

I know what an ex libris is. My mom is the Belgian ex libris artist Sonja
Brijs (look her up, will ya?) and I have several ex librises on my name.

>> "Ex Libris" comes from Latin - "from the books or library...".

"Ex Libris" does not come from Latin. It *is* Latin. That's a subtle but
important difference. You are right about the translation.

>> "Canta Libre" means "Song book" or "Book of Songs" but the base word
>> is from Latin.

In proper Latin it would be "Liber Cantus".

You are probably confused because the word "liber" (not "libre") in Latin
has two meanings:
1. as a noun: book
2. as an adjective: free

I know that there are a lot of choirs with the name "Canta Libre". This is
an intentional wordplay on the double meaning of the Latin word "liber".
On one hand, they use song books, but on the other hand, singing sets the
soul free (or that is supposed to be the intention).

By the way, "book" in French is "livre" and in Spanish it's "libro". But
in both languages "libre" means "free".
The word "libre" also exists in English as a neologism, and it is
pronounced as /ˈliːbrə/ or /ˈliːbr@/. That's
almost identical to the French pronounciation, where the final e is
completely silent. In Spanish on the other hand they say
/ˈliβɾe/ with a very distict e at the end.


To conclude: "libre" (in English) still sounds French to me, not Spanish.

-- 
Amedee