# To be is to Do



## brazil_ana

Geia sou!

It is very simple, but I'd appreciate your help translating these two phrases:

To be is to do.
God shall bring me justice.

Efcharistó,


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## Tetina

Hi Ana.



> To be is to do.


I'll pass this because I guess you want an exact translation of this quote by Socrates and I haven't heard of it.



> God shall bring me justice.


If this isn't another quotation I would translated like this: "O Theos tha me dikeosi"= ο Θεός θα με δικαιώσει.


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## brazil_ana

Exactly Tetina, that's Socrate's quote...
Thanks for the other!


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## wonderment

brazil_ana said:


> Exactly Tetina, that's Socrate's quote...



Are you sure?  

To do is to be.  --Socrates
To be is to do.  --Sartre
Do-be-do-be-do.  -–Sinatra

 Just a cute wordplay in English—I really don’t think it means anything.


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## Tetina

wonderment said:


> Are you sure?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> To do is to be. --Socrates
> To be is to do. --Sartre
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I found the opposite.
> Anyway, can't help in either
Click to expand...


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## brazil_ana

Either way, I still would like to know how to say it in English...!
And the 'Do-be-do-be-do' too... lol


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## wonderment

brazil_ana said:


> Either way, I still would like to know how to say it in English...!
> And the 'Do-be-do-be-do' too... lol



It’s already in English   ah, word games don’t translate well, if at all, from one language to another. But just to amuse you, in ancient Greek:

το εἶναι πράττειν ἐστί
το πράττειν εἶναι ἐστί
δου βί δου βί δου  D where’s balgior when we need him?) 

For the modern Greek version, I pass this back to Tetina or anyone who's game...



Tetina said:


> To do is to be. --Socrates
> To be is to do. --Sartre
> 
> I found the opposite



oh, I’ve seen it too—it’s what happens with popular transmission of things that people make up and you can’t fact-check, you end up with all these variants.


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## balgior

wonderment said:


> δου βί δου βί δου  D where’s balgior when we need him?)



Με φώναξε κανείς; 
Βλέπω το διασκεδάζουμε Karen, έτσι; 

Hello from me, then!

When I saw this post I thought this must be another version of "... άρα υπάρχω" in modern Greek. Many improvised variations of Descartes' (Καρτέσιος... ) "σκέφτομαι άρα υπάρχω" are being used in modern Greek... (Καταναλώνω, άρα υπάρχω... Καταστρέφω, άρα υπάρχω... *Πράττω*, άρα υπάρχω...). This was my guess, as I've never heard of a common modern Greek version of "to be is to do". However, as Tetina said, I thought you were probably looking for the exact words of Socrates.


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## wonderment

brazil_ana said:


> He wonderment, are you a translator?
> Just wondering...!



Hi Anna,   Oh, I haven’t that kind of fluency in another language, like balgior with English. 



balgior said:


> Με φώναξε κανείς;
> Βλέπω το διασκεδάζουμε Karen, έτσι;



Touché!  And about Descartes, you forgot: φλυαρώ άρα υπάρχω  (I chat, therefore I am...)  Tattoo? 

Anyway, I’m pretty sure neither Socrates nor any of those guys ever said any of those things. Anna, do you just want a straight translation into modern Greek? I’m curious myself because of the infinitives.


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## Kevman

wonderment: I think I may be able to address your infinitive, er, wonderment, but as usual we'll probably want to wait for some confirmation of my translations from the natives.

This would be an instance where the translation is potentially more complicated than simply using the subjunctive (although, even though the verbs don't seem to be 'subjugated' by any others, you could probably argue that they still denote a kind of hypotheticality [there! I made up a new _English_ word this time!], and so are semantically subjunctive).

At any rate, I think the subjunctive works okay here, too:
Να υπάρχει είναι να κάνει.

Alternatively, you could rephrase it by substantivizing the infinitives in various ways, either by substantivizing the subjunctive phrase with _το_:
Το να υπάρχει είναι το να κάνει. (Although this sounds a lot clunkier than the plain subjunctive version in this case, but this construction can roughly correspond to the English gerund: _Being is doing_.)
or by using nouns instead of verbs:
Η ύπαρξη είναι η δράση.  (_Existence is action._)


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## balgior

Hmmm, we' ve  made it complicated here I think... I can see where you are trying to get to Kevman, however we wouldn't say these...



> (Το) να υπάρχει είναι (το) να κάνει.


"Who?" is the question that follows.

In  English one can use "one" or "somebody"  in order not to refer to a specific person. The subject ("one") must be stated at least once and then it may be omitted.

In English you can even use "you" the same way. (not specifically you Kevman, but anyone)

Στα Ελληνικά μπορεί κανείς/κάποιος να χρησιμοποιήσει γ' ενικό πρόσωπο με τον ίδιο ακριβώς τρόπο. Δεν μπορεί όμως * να παραλείψει το "κανείς". (* Here "κανείς" can be omitted because it has been stated at the first sentence. Without it at all, one would ask "who"?)

Στα Ελληνικά μπορείς επίσης να χρησιμοποιήσεις β' ενικό πρόσωπο, χωρίς όμως υποκείμενο. Αν χρησιμοποιήσεις το "εσύ", τότε δείχνεις στο συνομιλιτή σου ότι εννοείς τον ίδιο.

Sorry for the long (and maybe unclear - hopefully not) introduction. The conclusion is, however, that either you would say:

(Το) να υπάρχει *κανείς* είναι (το) να κάνει

or:

(Το) να υπάρχει*ς* είναι (το) να κάνει*ς

*Also, the verb "είναι" seems inappropriate in modern Greek, the way these sentences are formed. And, for a reason I cannot explain, the second (το) is very very clumsy Greek. So I would say:

 (Το) να υπάρχει κανείς σημαίνει να κάνει.
(Το) να υπάρχεις σημαίνει να κάνεις.
(Η) ύπαρξη σημαίνει δράση.

Unfortunately, my linguistic knowledge doesn't help much...
 
And I have a feeling that we are mixing two different posts here... Should we move them next door? Ireney, heeelp!


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## wonderment

Thanks so much, Kevman and balgior.



balgior said:


> (Το) να υπάρχει κανείς σημαίνει να κάνει.
> (Το) να υπάρχεις σημαίνει να κάνεις.
> (Η) ύπαρξη σημαίνει δράση.



Beautiful  And in essense very similar to the Καρτέσιος idea you brought up earlier (φλυαρώ άρα υπάρχω )--what you do is the very essence of who you are. Fortunately, your linguistic knowledge helps a lot--more than you'll ever know.  Na 'sai kala.


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## ireney

*OK folks, moderating note!

Any further discussion of anything but the translation of "to be is to do" will be deleted. Copy/paste anything you want in a new thread or an existing one that does discuss what you are interested in.*

There!


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## brazil_ana

I see, wonderment, it's just that as a translator, it is always nice to see people recognizing translation's difficulties, though I truly love it. Hopefully I'll be able to translate int Greek soon enough and take part in discussion such as "do-be-do"!
Thanks for everybody's help,
Geia

P.S. Signomi, Ireney, it wasn't exactly a chat, just a curiosity, but yes, it should've been private. But this one comes as a clarifying statement to everybody who joined the discussion.


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