OFF: hja"lp med svensk!

[Carl Edlund Anderson]

On mån 27 okt 1997 21.23 "Daniel Wikdahl" <mpj95wid at MC.HIK.SE> wrote:
> OK; "De m”ktiga" is plural but the english phrase is in singular,
> right?!

     Well, it is a bit hazy.  "The mighty" appears singular, but functions
in a plural manner.  One would say "he is" (singular) but "the mighty are"
(plural).

     So really, I think it corresponds to "de mäktiga" pretty well.  One
could say "the sword of the mighty one does not sleep" and that would be
definitely singular, but I think "the sword of the mighty does not sleep"
suggests plural mighty people.

     Literally, the English phrase gives them all only one sword :) so it
is a bit figurative and poetic.  Perhaps the Swedish singular "den
mäktige" translates the sense better?

> ...and you have to put "ej" in the end of the sentence.
> "De m”ktigas sv”rd sover ej:" is OK if you want to use the plural
form.
> or in singular; "Den m”ktiges sv”rd sover ej".
> But it sounds quite silly... a little more poetic translation could be
> like;
> "Den m”ktiges sv”rd _vilar_ ej"
> But I think this one is the best:
> "Ej vilar den m”ktiges sv”rd" (or "Ej sover den m”ktiges sv”rd".)

     Verkligen trevligt!  It is supposed to be a kind of motto, so poetic
speech is ideal.

> "Vila" ="rest"... but in this context it works better than
"sova/sleep".

     Ah, like Old Scandinavian "hvíla" or "hwíla".  A similar  meaning
survives in English "while", in the phrase "to while away the time"
(meaning "att fördriva tiden" på svensk", jag tror).

> ps ... and where did you find this phrase?

     Well, I found the English expression years and years ago in a book
somewhere and just liked the sound of it.  Later on I tried translating it
into islensk, but didn't get very far.  Now, I thought I'd put a "groovy"
motto on my WWW site, but since it has a Swedish theme, I thought I'd try
to translate the phrase into Swedish.
     Maybe I'll try fornsvensk eventually :)

     I thought it makes a good motto for me, since I'm usually doing 12
things at once, and forgetting to do another 12 at the same time :)

Cheers,
Carl