Guy Kawasaki, whom I first heard of because of his association with Apple, and who is apparently a Silicon Valley guru or some such, has a blog called ”Signum sine tinnitu,” which is frequently cited in the blogosphere, showing up on Technorati, del.icio.us, and digg quite often as of late.

Now, having studied Latin (somewhat inadvertantly) in high school and being dementedly obsessed with the all things from the Roman Empire, including their literature, I felt the need to deconstruct the blog’s title. I gather it’s supposed to be related to the phrase “signal to noise,” with the idea I think he is trying to convey being “signal without noise,” signum being the word for “sign,” sine meaning “without.” Tinnitus, however, means ringing, and was incorporated directly into English as a specific medical term describing ringing in one’s ears. I’m not sure there is a specific Latin word for non-descript noise—the closest is probably sonitus, which is just the word for “sound.”

Interestingly, “noise” is supposedly derived from the same root as “nausea”, which immediately gives me the imagery of sea, and the roaring of the waves.

Which, I suppose, interestingly, is what tinnitus is supposed to sound like—the roaring of the waves. Perhaps the same sound you hear when you listen to a seashell. Which makes it then not surprising at all, since tinnitus arises from the random firing of damaged nerve endings sitting in your cochlea, the organ that transduces sound into electrical signals, and which shaped like a tiny seashell. But as usual, I digress.

But if I were to try to back-translate “signal without noise,” I would try to preserve some poetry to it, particularly the nautical etymology of the word “noise,” so I’d say signum super fragendo undi, meaning “sign above the roaring/crashing waves.” Or perhaps more simply, signum super undisono, meaning the same thing. Undisonus specifically means the sound of waves, derived, as you can see, from undus “wave” and sonus “sound”

I also like using “waves” because of how it relates to how we typically transmit signals these days—as electromagnetic waves.