Nitpick: “quidquid” meaning whatever is one word not two words. While ancient Latin didn’t have spacing between words, we can see that in this sort of context it was intended as a single word because Latin allows a lot of word order rearrangement and “quidquid” didn’t get split up (as I understand that). “Quid” means “what” but “quidquid” means “whatever” or “anything”.
And there’s a disclaimer necessary here that I haven’t taken Latin in a decade so I could be wrong but I don’t think I am.
I think I agree that quidquid cannot normally be split up; but is that reason enough to say it must be one word? The particle -que cannot normally be split up either, but it is split up occasionally in poetry, if I remember correctly. I think what constitutes a word and what doesn’t is ultimately an unreclaimable quagmire, though in this case I’d certainly prefer quidquid over quid quid too.
Interesting, I guess the French “quoique” and “quelque” (“whatever” and “some”) are descendents of this formulation (“quoi”, “que”, and “quel” are also words of their own).
Nitpick: “quidquid” meaning whatever is one word not two words. While ancient Latin didn’t have spacing between words, we can see that in this sort of context it was intended as a single word because Latin allows a lot of word order rearrangement and “quidquid” didn’t get split up (as I understand that). “Quid” means “what” but “quidquid” means “whatever” or “anything”.
And there’s a disclaimer necessary here that I haven’t taken Latin in a decade so I could be wrong but I don’t think I am.
I think I agree that quidquid cannot normally be split up; but is that reason enough to say it must be one word? The particle -que cannot normally be split up either, but it is split up occasionally in poetry, if I remember correctly. I think what constitutes a word and what doesn’t is ultimately an unreclaimable quagmire, though in this case I’d certainly prefer quidquid over quid quid too.
Interesting, I guess the French “quoique” and “quelque” (“whatever” and “some”) are descendents of this formulation (“quoi”, “que”, and “quel” are also words of their own).
He’s right, as far as I studied.