Expert: Maria - 1/22/2005

Question
I would like to know how the phrase "the animal that ought to know better" would be written in Latin? Any help would be much appreciated!

Answer
Hello,

The literal translation of "the animal that ought to know better" is:

“Animal quod plus sapere debet”.

where ANIMAL is ‘animal'; QUOD is ‘that'; DEBET is ‘ought'; SAPERE is ‘to know'; PLUS is ‘better'.

I must however point out that it would need to know the context of the English phrase to render it into good Latin.

Best regards
Maria