Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
Opinion has long been divided as to the exact interpretation of the phrase de tenero ungui, the Latin version of a Greek proverbial expression The competing explanations are:
A. ‘from the depth of her being’, penitus.
B. ‘from her earliest childhood’, ab infantia; that is, presumably, from the time when the nails were still soft like those of a very young baby (though cf. E. W. Fay, A.J.Ph. xxix [1908], 205).
page 81 note 1 I owe this reference to the kindness of the editors of the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae.
page 83 note 1 I am grateful to Professor C. J. Fordyce and Mr. R. G. M. Nisbet for reading a draft of this note.