Talk:Ex Deus Machina

the title is "Ex Deus Machina," not "Deus Ex Machina," so that one note isn't correct. Changed.

In the notes it says:

The episode's title appears to be similar to the term "Deus Ex Machina," which literally translates to "God from the Machine." The title, therefore, is a play on words, since Ba'al is an ex-deus (an ex-god). Although, since the phrase is latin in origin, this changed order does not affect its meaning.

But this isn't strictly correct. Even in inflectional languages, such as Latin, word order is rather rigid in certain cases, such as in use of prepositions. Here, "ex" is a preposition, and it goes with "machina" (ablative form of machina); normally, prepositions come right before the word it goes with (hence preposition). It's very unusual to have another word interposed in-between (and since "deus" is nominative, it can't go with a preposition)—yes, it's a "clever" pun (where "clever" should be taken in the worst way possible), but as far as latin part of it goes, it's just bad grammar (I wouldn't say that we never see something like that in well-known Latin works, but a student in Latin composition should never write such a phrase).

both are correct latin: it's called a hyperbaton, and the deus ex machina is an event (apart from the theatre crane, machine, bringing the god on the stage at the turning point of the story) - a surprising twist.--Flammingo^Hey 10:15, 2 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I would still argue that this is bad Latin, especially when coming from a modern writer (as opposed to, a Roman, or at least someone writing before Renaissance). One, hyperbaton, especially in this form where another word stands between the preposition and object, is rare, and at least the case quoted in Hyperbaton page (the Greek passage) is a special case: I quote Liddel and Scott (the smallest edition), under "ΠΡΟΣ", with genitives, "3. in presence of, before, whence its use in oaths and protestations: μάρτυρι πρὸς θεῶν, πρὸς ἀνθρώπων, witnesses before gods and men: in which case the Attic insert σέ between the prep. and acc., πρός σε θεῶν αἰτῶ I beseech thee by the gods, Lat. per te deos oro." (emphasis mine). "Ex" has no such (common) recorded use (at least according to the dictionary I'm using: Cassell's Latin Dictionary), and such use by a modern writer is almost certainly an error---as the saying in a Latin class goes, "He can do that because he's Cicero---but you can't." Two, interpretting this as a hyperbaton makes this a very bad title---the plot has nothing in resemblence to what is referred to as "deus ex machina", "deus ex machina" is not marked by a surprising twist to the story (if so, it would be a good plot device, as opposed to all-too-convenient plot-resolving-tool it's often seen as), but a sudden, rather unlikely resolution to a tangle of a plot by intervention of a higher being, like a god or a king. That's not what happens here. Three, the last possible interpretation "ex-deus machina" is gibberish. Even after forgiving that the gender is mismatched (such a thing does happen every now and then) and assuming some form of "be" verb (or other such verbs, like "become", etc.), "machina" isn't a mechanic, or any kind of person---so, even the producer's joke doesn't quite work except as a case of false friend or an over-stretched word play.

Again, this is at best an English pun (by a monolingual speaker of English (at best not a student of Latin))---casting it as anything else just brings it down ... as, well, any sort of over-analyzing and nitpicking does.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.32.25.13 (talk • contribs) 11:03, 27 August 2007