# draco dormiens nunquam tittilandus



## Stoggler

Hi

I wonder if someone could confirm something for me.  I've been parsing this sentence (the motto of Hogwart's from the Harry Potter books, meaning "Never tickle a sleeping dragon") and the word "tittilandus" has me a little confused.  I suspect that it is the future passive participle - is this the case?

Thanks


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## Joca

Yes, but it is usually called the Gerundive.


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## Stoggler

Thanks Joca


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## Scholiast

salvete!

Joca is right - it is indeed usually called the gerundive at least in British textbooks. But note that Wheelock, which is mainly admirable and I believe widely used not only in the US but elsewhere too, and perhaps in some other American textbooks as well, it is - to my mind misleadingly - called the "future passive participle".

Σ


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## wandle

The future sense of the gerundive is not direct, so to speak, but is derived only from its modal sense.

_*Titillandus*_ means 'fit to be tickled', 'tickleable', 'due to be tickled', 'that can be tickled', 'that ought to be tickled'.
In other words, it expresses obligation or expectation in the mind of speaker or listener.

If it were a future passive participle, it would mean 'that will be tickled' , expressing a prediction as a matter of fact.
In other words, the speaker knows or believes that it will be tickled.

The Hogwarts motto uses the gerundive correctly, meaning that the beast never ought to be tickled, not that it never will be.


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## Stoggler

Cracking clarification Wandle, thanks


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