Rule 80: Result Clauses 

Slowly but surely

The alternate imperfect forms of sum, esse? That's a good topic to look at where it comes from, but in the end, forem = essem.

@@latintutorial Thank you so much for replying. I'm still not sure I understand, however. I learned that forem/fores/foret comes from something like *bhuh I think, and it's also a cognate with English "be" and tense markers in Latin, but I'm just not sure what to make of all of it. Anyways, apparently there *is* a subtle difference between forem and essem, but I just don't know what.. Wiktionary puts it as an "early form" of essem, and I've read elsewhere online that it's usually used to show a condition. 🤔 Anyways that's a concept I've always struggled with and any knowledge you could share with me if really appreciate

This is just my experience and opinion, but I tend to use "forem, fores, foret, etc.," when talking about things in the future, and use "essem..." When talking about things of the past. "Alicui quod fortasse tantī dēlectātīones tibi foret incidī" I have found something which might be of such a delight for you. "In Germaniam non perveni quia honoribus tuis essem subsidio barbare" I did not come into Germany so that I could help with your honors barbarian. I know both clauses have a verb in the perfect tense with esse in the imperfect, so they look grammatically identical, but they are situationally different. The first example shows that the "something" that may or may not be delightful for the unnamed 'tibi' has not yet been examined by the recipient of the sentence to determine whether or not it is something delightful for them. The second example shows that the speaker has already come into Germany and that while he was planning on coming into Germany, it wasn't so that he could help out any Barbarians. It doesn't rely on any decision of the future. All the decisions have already been made in second example, whereas the first example still has something left open to be decided in the future. That's how I distinguish between 'essem' and 'forem', but as far as I'm aware they are technically interchangeable.

@@latintutorial Just to check my work, is my explanation correct or am I flat out wrong? I'm not qualified to know for certain.

@@Enoughdata shouldn't it be "incido" not incidi

The subjunctive doesn’t *have* to indicate uncertainty or potential. Think of a purpose clause where the purpose indicates an unreal event that pretty commonly is the case, or an indirect question or command, or even a jussive where the urged action isn’t quite in the realm of uncertain/potential. Both Latin and English treat result clauses in the same way, for the most part. But you *can* have a result in the way you talk about, and there are some examples of intended effect, and it seems to be treated more like a purpose clause (e.g., ne in the negative rather than ut non). But I wonder in your example if that would just involve a form of possum and the potential is conveyed clearly thus: e.g., exercitus tam magnus est ut orbem terrarum regnare possit. Or something similar.

The ancient Romans weren't big on subtractive Roman numerals, so they preferred IIII to IV, etc. And this makes sense because addition and subtraction with Roman numerals is so much easier if you don't have IV or IX. The subtractive numerals like IV and IX only became common and standard in the middle ages.

@@latintutorial ah ok thanks v much, I think I just learnt it as IV and IX in primary school so that was the thing I turned to. It's interesting that they didn't like using subtractive numerals seeing as it wouldn't take so long for them to write large number (9494 being IXCDXCIV the way most learnt it but DCCCCLXXXXIIII in the 'additive' Roman numerals) (!)