Talk:Sententia

Wine and age

I've been editing Wikipedia for a very long time and I could probably count on one hand the number of times I've posted questions rather than just fixing things myself, but I'm very confused by several aspects of the last three sentences of the first paragraph of the article at the time of this writing and can't figure out how to proceed. The paragraph currently reads:

Sententiae, the nominative plural of the Latin word sententia, are brief moral sayings, such as proverbs, adages, aphorisms, maxims, or apophthegms taken from ancient or popular or other sources, often quoted without context. Sententia, the nominative singular, also called a "sentence", is a kind of rhetorical proof. Through the invocation of a proverb, quotation, or witty turn of phrase during a presentation or conversation one may be able to gain the assent of the listener, who will hear a kind of non-logical, but agreed-upon truth in what one is saying. An example of this is the phrase "age is better with wine"[1] playing off of the adage "wine is better with age".[citation needed] The same saying is present in Luke 5,39.[2]

I won't bother inserting the wiki markup, references, etc., here as they're easily seen on the main article page. I'll just dive into my questions.

1. The word "non-logical" in the third sentence seems incorrectly applied. If these are "rhetorical proofs" containing "agreed-upon truth", I fail to understand how they can be "non-logical". To use the example given in the same paragraph, wine certainly is better with age for some very logical, scientific reasons. However, I feel the writer might possibly have intended a reference to the formal, philosophical field of logic (a topic in which I am not at all well-versed) rather than the everyday meaning of the word, so I don't want to change it incorrectly as a result of my own ignorance.
2. I'm not sure what's intended by the "citation needed" note. The sentence does contain one citation, though I'm unsure of its relevance or validity, but perhaps the note was intended to refer to the second adage. If so, that's (sort of; more on this below) cited in the following sentence. The problem as I see it isn't that a citation is needed, though it's possible—particularly in the second instance—that a better source is needed. I feel a bit more confident changing this myself, but even here I hesitate due to my overall ignorance of this topic.
3. The thing that confuses me the most is the source cited for Luke 5:39. The verse does say (essentially) that people say wine improves with age, but why are we not either (a) simply linking to Luke 5:39 (which reads in the NIV: "And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, 'The old is better.'"), or (b) at the very least, linking to a commentary written less than, oh, I don't know, 360-odd years ago?! Plus, I checked and the commentary doesn't even add any information related to this as an aphorism. It merely says:

   Verse 39. The old is better ] That is, milder, and so pleasanter. Vetustate enim vina mitescunt, quia vetustas igneum calorem, acerbitatem, & faeces è vino tellit. Age clarifies wine, and ripens it.

   Note: In case it matters to anyone, according to Google Translate, the Latin bit reads "For the wines mellow with age, because age removes fiery heat, bitterness, and dregs from the wine."
4. And finally, it's a very minor point at this juncture, but the source that's cited for the quote above wasn't even accurate as I found it. I did change this because it was a clear error, but I mention it here just to give a complete record of my inspection of this paragraph. It originally said that the quoted portion was on p. 726 of the book in question. That page contains the author's commentary on II Corinthians 9:5-14, not Luke 5. The correct reference is actually on p. 387.

I hope someone can clear up the other issues, and I apologize for not doing it myself. Thanks for your help! -- edi(talk) 20:35, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Title of this article

Shouldn't the title of this article be "Sententiae"? This question is based simply on the fact that the focus of the article is "Sententiae" rather than "Sententia". This especially underlined by there being an existing article: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sententia — Preceding unsigned comment added by FranceDS (talk • contribs) 10:13, 10 April 2024 (UTC)