Carpe noctem, not carpe nox

Carpe noctem, not carpe nox

Carpe is an order and its object goes in the accusative. A dictionary gives you the nominative, so a noun swapped into carpe X has to change its ending.

Carpe vita is not nonsense, which is the trouble: it says pluck, O life, or read with a long final a, pluck with life. Neither is seize life.

Carpe momentum is grammatical, and momentum can mean a moment, but its first senses are a movement and a deciding weight, so a Latin reader may also see pluck the impulse.

Mistakes people ink

Not Latin at all

• illegitimi non carborundum, don't let the bastards grind you down: mock Latin, a joke usually traced to the British Army in the Second World War. Carborundum is a trade name for an abrasive.
• semper ubi sub ubi, always where under where: an English pun on always wear underwear.
• solo Dio può giudicarmi, only God can judge me, is Italian. The Latin is solus Deus me iudicare potest.

The machine-translation error deserves a word. Tools hand back the dictionary form where the sentence needs an accusative, and an -us adjective whoever the wearer is. Translate the result back into English and you will often get a different sentence.

Check a phrase before the needle

1. Find the verb. Check the person: spero is I hope, sperat he/she hopes.
2. Check every object and preposition. After carpe, per and ad, the accusative: per aspera ad astra. After de, ex, pro and sine, the ablative: pro patria.
3. Check any word that describes you. -us for a man, -a for a woman, or a third-declension adjective for either.
4. Trace it to a source. Real phrases have an author or a dated motto. If it appears only in tattoo galleries, that is an echo, not attestation.

Classical inscriptions used capitals with V for U: IVLIVS for Julius. If you want that look, commit to it everywhere.