Expert: Maria - 1/11/2012

Question
I've been doing some research, and I've found a number of translations of "Honesty is the best policy".  And would like to hear your version.

Many thanks.

Answer
Hello,

Since it is obvious that in "Honesty is the best policy” the term “policy” is used  in the sense of “a course of action, guiding principle, or procedure considered expedient, prudent, or advantageous”, not in the sense of “a plan or course of action, as of a government, political party, or business, intended to influence and determine decisions, actions, and other matters”, here are two Latin translations:

-“Optima agendi ratio est honestas”

-“Optimus agendi modus est honestas”

They both are correct, of course, and then you can choose the one you like better.

Please note that in classical Latin “agendi ratio” as well as “agendi modus” literally mean “way of acting/behaving” just to denote a policy as "a course of action and  guiding principle", not as "a plan or course of action, as of a government, political party, or business".

As for the term “politia” we find  in "Honestas politia optima” that was  the Latin motto of John Rowlands of Nant ( died in 1703), I have to point out that in classical Latin the feminine noun “politia” does not mean “policy”, but  “Republic” related to the name of one of Plato's works, i.e. “Plato’s Republic”, as we read in Cicero’s De divinatione, 1, 29,60[“Vide, quid Socrates in Platonis Politia loquatur” meaning "Observe what Socrates says in Plato's Republic").

Therefore the translation “Honestas politia optima”, where the verb “est” (meaning “is”) is implied, would sound absolutely strange in good Latin.

Read more below.

Best regards,
Maria
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GRAMMATICAL ANALYSIS

-Honesty = HONESTAS (subject in the nominative, feminine noun, 3rd.declension)

-is = EST (from SUM, I am)

-the best = OPTIMA (superlative in the nominative feminine agreed with RATIO) or  OPTIMUS (superlative in the nominative masculine agreed with MODUS)

-policy = RATIO (nominative, feminine noun, 3rd.declension) or MODUS (nominative, masculine noun, 2nd.declension)

As you can see, Latin word order is different from English for Latin is an inflected language where syntactical relationships are indicated by the inflectional endings, not by the order of the words.