Talk:Bene Gesserit

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The following references may be useful when improving this article in the future:

David, Ari (January 5, 2020). "Dune: Why the Bene Gesserit Is Crucial to the Series". Comic Book Resources. Retrieved January 9, 2020.
Villeneuve: BG vs. Mentats: "Dune's Timeliest Sci-Fi Concept Is Missing from the Movies for a Crucial Reason". Inverse. December 31, 2023.
Hill, Brad (March 2, 2024). "Dune: The Bene Gesserit, Explained". Game Rant.

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We should include the Latin origin of Bene Gesserit[edit]

Recently, I edited this page to include reference to the Latin origins of the term "Bene Gesserit", specifically from the phrase quamdiu se bene gesserit. This was in the wikipedia page years ago, and was also removed years ago, as best I can tell (this happened multiple times, eg [1] [2]). User:TAnthony has reverted my recent edit with the message “This was removed because there is no reliable source that connects the translations to Herbert's intent”. I'd like to bring up this subject now. Apparently there has been no discussion of this issue on this talk page since the Archive-1 era, during which everyone seemed to be in favor of keeping it. There are various aspects of this issue, about which I have various thoughts.

1.

The main reason, in my opinion, that we don't need to bring up a reliable source for "bene gesserit" is that it's already a real thing. "bene gesserit" is a completely valid legal latin phrase, used throughout English history. "Bene gesserit" isn't a valid phrase, nor is gesserit a valid word, in any other language. This did not happen by sheer improbable coincidence. If Herbert had named a group in his setting "The Quid Pro Quo", we would not need to produce a citation to mention quid pro quo. (We do have a citation that quamdiu se bene gesserit is a latin legal phrase, however: Bouvier's Law Dictionary, 1856 Edition. Also, https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100357561, kind of (but it's in the plural there).)

2.

I think it's also fine to include the pregnancy meaning of gerō, with citation to a dictionary entry about gerō, but this admittedly seems like more of a stretch to me, even though I think it's ultimately fine (I think it's fine because this would be common knowledge for the reader if they happened to know latin already—or, at least, I think this is the case).

3.

Also, it's come to my attention, by poking around this page's history, that we do have a source claiming Herbert based "bene gesserit" on Latin: Frank Herbert, a book by English professor William F. Touponce, pages 75-76:

By the way, Bene Gesserit means “that it may be borne or accomplished well,” and is derived from the hortative subjunctive of the Latin verb gero, meaning “to bear or carry away” in its root sense, but also “to conduct oneself in society.”

Possibly including this citation on the page would be enough to resolve any dispute. A reliable source (which we cite elsewhere on the page) claims Bene Gesserit is Latin. This source was cited I think in older revisions of the page I was looking at, but not the most recent one nor the one I wrote.

3b.

... There is one problem with the source, which other editors of the past have noted. His latin is wrong—on the finer points. To quote wiktionary, gesserit can be the third-person singular future perfect active indicative of gerō "he will have carried, he will have borne; she will have worn" or the third-person singular perfect active subjunctive of gerō "he may have carried, he may have borne; she may have worn". Neither of these is technically the hortative (which is a first-person subjunctive) nor are they in the passive voice, like the quote translates it. Also, the source doesn't mention quamdiu se bene gesserit.

Tentative conclusion.:

I think we should mention quamdiu se bene gesserit on the page. In fact, I think we should do my edit to the page (which is why I did it). But at the very least we should mention that "bene gesserit" is latin. We can cite Touponce if we want, but I don't think we should include his translation, because it seems slightly incorrect. I'm hoping we can reach a consensus about what to do on this page, but I probably will not contribute to this conversation further, due to time constraints. Thanks for your consideration. Dingolover6969 (talk) 19:02, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What exactly is the point of pointing out that this is a Latin phrase, and what it means, when there doesn't seem to be source that suggests Herbert intended any of the possible meanings of this phase to apply to this fictional group? Brian Herbert himself has to speculate where his father pulled the name from. No one is challenging the veracity of the translation, just what it has to do with anything here. At least with the Arabic terms Herbert uses, there is usually an obvious connection in that his meaning is the same as the "real" words, even if he changes the spelling. And of course we have scholarly sources that make the connection for us. — TAnthony^Talk 19:31, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In your edits, you seem to be trying to make a connection, which is not our place as editors. That is called original research and synthesis.— TAnthony^Talk 19:35, 17 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

TAnthony good point. How would you feel about something like " 'Bene Gesserit' is derived from Latin", with a citation to the Touponce source? (Or possibly "According to William F. Touponce," etc). No need to overstep the scholarly source we have, I agree. (I also don't want to quote his exact analysis of the Latin, for the latin-grammar-error reason mentioned above.)

Also, I suppose, Bene and Gesserit could be linked to the wiktionary entries for those words. Or maybe gero could be mentioned as well, since it's in the source, and linked instead. Dingolover6969 (talk) 03:42, 30 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@TAnthony: I've done the edit I proposed, feel free to revert if you don't think it's suitable. Dingolover6969 (talk) 10:23, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]