Family crest motto in Latin

July 10, 2017 4:53 PM

My friend is designing her family crest and she would like to have the phrase "All or Nothing" in Latin. Is "Aut Omnia Aut Nihil" a good translation? If not, what would be better?
posted by exceptinsects to Writing & Language (2 answers total)

Best answer: "Aut Omnia aut Nihil" is closer to "Either All or Nothing." You might consider "Omnia aut Nihil," which is no less clear and avoids opening with a conjunction. "All" and "Nothing" are correctly translated and "aut" is used correctly (as opposed to "vel").

If you want to be super nitpicky, Latin didn't have a upper-case/lower-case distinction, so authors usually default to the capitalization rules of their native languages. In English, the "aut" before "Nihil" wouldn't be capitalized.

Here, you're using the nominative, which is likely what you want, unless you imagine the motto as part of a longer sentence, e.g. "(For) All or Nothing" or "(Take) All or Nothing," in which cases you would uses the genitive or accusative, respectively.
posted by lozierj at 6:45 PM on July 10, 2017 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thank you! The capitalization was just because it seems more motto-y that way.
posted by exceptinsects at 11:27 AM on July 11, 2017