H. P. GRICE E J. L. SPERANZA: LA CONVERSAZIONE -- I VERBALI: CETRONIANO

G.: Pansa again. M.: Not merely “Pansa,” if you please. S.: Oh, come now—Pansa will do. Saves ink. G.: Ink is cheap; nomenclature is not. It is Gaius Vibius Pansa Caetronianus. M.: Quite right. Mr. Shropshire, you have amputated half the man. S.: I’ve spared the reader. G.: You have deprived him of his adoption. M.: Explain. G.: “Vibius” marks the gens Vibia, his original family. “Caetronianus” signals adoption into the Caetronii. S.: Then he ought to pick one and be done with it. G.: Rome does not do “being done.” It does accumulation. M.: Precisely. Adoption in Rome is not erasure but addition. S.: Addition? Looks like clutter. G.: It is curated clutter. The adoptee keeps a trace of origin and signals the new allegiance. M.: And the suffix “-ianus” is the polite way of saying “formerly of.” S.: Formerly of, currently verbose. G.: Formerly Vibius, now Caetronianus by adoption, yet still Vibius by memory. M.: Mr. Shropshire, give the full style. S.: Gaius… Vibius… Pansa… Caetronianus. There. I feel faint. G.: That is merely the nominative. Wait till you meet the genitive. M.: Now, why does Mr. Grice insist on keeping the Caetronianus? G.: Because it carries information—social, legal, and conversational. S.: Conversational? G.: Yes. Names are signals. They implicate lineage, alliances, obligations. M.: A very Roman view. G.: And a very Oxonian one, if we are honest. S.: I only hear syllables. G.: Then you are deaf to implicature. M.: Suppose we catalogue him. Under what letter? S.: P, obviously. Pansa. G.: Barbarous. Under C. S.: C? G.: Caetronianus. M.: Defend that, Mr. Grice. G.: The adoption is the salient public fact. The agnomen tells the story the cognomen only begins. S.: The story being that he changed families. G.: And retained the trace of both. That is the point. M.: But catalogues favour stability. G.: Stability is an illusion; Roman names are arguments. S.: Arguments? G.: Each element answers a question: who are you, whose are you, what have you become. M.: Nicely put. S.: I still say P. G.: And I say C, especially if we are writing i verbali. M.: Ah, the minutes of conversation. G.: Exactly. In i verbali, we record what matters for identification in context. S.: Context being your new hobby. G.: My permanent one. M.: Mr. Shropshire, what happens to “ae” in Italian? S.: It becomes “e,” I think. G.: Just so. Caetronianus becomes Cetroniano. M.: Hence Mr. Grice’s preference for C in an Italian register. S.: We are in Clifton, not Firenze. G.: Scholarship travels. M.: And so do names. S.: Very well, Cetroniano. It still sounds like furniture. G.: Better furniture than mutilated ancestry. M.: Let us be clear: was he adopted? G.: Yes. The presence of “Caetronianus” indicates adoption into the gens Caetronia. S.: And he keeps “Vibius” because— G.: Because Romans preserve origin while signalling transformation. M.: Unlike certain moderns who prefer clean breaks. S.: Clean breaks are tidy. G.: And uninformative. M.: Mr. Shropshire, what would you do with a man who drops half his name? S.: I would assume he is modest. G.: Or forgetful. M.: Or careless. S.: Or English. G.: Touché, but irrelevant. M.: Now, what of “Pansa”? S.: The bit I kept. G.: The cognomen, yes. It distinguishes within the gens. M.: So we have praenomen, nomen, cognomen, and an adoptive agnomen. S.: A procession. G.: A structure. M.: And each element carries implicature, as Mr. Grice would say. G.: Precisely. Omit one, and you risk misidentification. S.: Or you risk exhausting the reader. G.: The reader is a reasonable agent. M.: We hope. S.: I am not convinced. G.: Then our pedagogy has failed. M.: Not yet. Mr. Shropshire, translate “Caetronianus” into plain English sense. S.: “Adopted from the Caetronii.” G.: Near enough. M.: And “Vibius”? S.: “Of the Vibii.” G.: Good. Now combine. S.: “Originally Vibius, later adopted into the Caetronii.” M.: There you are. A biography in a name. G.: Which is why I insist on the C. S.: And I insist on brevity. G.: Brevity without content is mere truncation. M.: Gentlemen, consider the scholarship. S.: The scholarship? M.: Mr. Grice aims at Corpus Christi. G.: With some luck and much Latin. S.: And excessive names. G.: Names are part of the torture. M.: Pleasant torture, Mr. Grice? G.: My mother’s idea, not my father’s. S.: I suspected as much. M.: Then you will indulge the full Roman style. G.: Gladly. S.: I shall indulge it reluctantly. M.: That is all we ask. G.: In any case, he kept the C, which is more than many adoptees can hope. S.: You mean some lose their origin entirely. G.: Precisely. Here we have both preserved. M.: A model of Roman compromise. S.: Or Roman verbosity. G.: Call it what you will; I call it information-rich. M.: And information invites inference. G.: Which is the beginning of philosophy. S.: From names to philosophy—ambitious. G.: From names to meaning—inevitable. M.: Then write it so: Gaius Vibius Pansa Caetronianus. S.: With a sigh. G.: With a smile. M.: And under which letter? S.: P. G.: C. M.: We shall list him twice. G.: Sensible. S.: Indulgent. M.: Scholarly.