Old Norse "at vaxa í augu" (lit. "to grow in eyes") looks very
similar to Swedish "att växa i ögonen" meaning "to increase
[something in the eyes of someone]". Example: "Jag har jobbat för att
växa i ögonen hos bolagsledningen" meaning "I have been working to
increase my value [as an employee] in the eyes of the company
management".
Aspåecial case is the following "allt växer i mina ögon", meaning "in
my eyes everything appears to be bigger [better, worse, etc]. This is
the "making a mountain out of" interpretation of Old Norse "allt vex
í augu". To know Modern Swedish helps you out most of the time where
the foreigner of non-scandinavian-speaking background gets stuck, I
believe. Of course, knowing Modern Icelandic is probably even better
in the context than knowing Modern Swedish... :)


/Sjuler





--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, Arlie Stephens <arlie@...>
wrote:

> On May 07 2004, Erich Rickheit KSC wrote:
> >
> > Fred and Grace Hatton wrote:
> > > Þorbjörn svarar: 'Því verðr engi uppreist yðar ungra manna,
> > > ? They are not raising up, of you young men,
> > >
> > > at yðr vex allt í augu.
> > > that everything grows in your eye. (I couldn?t make any sense

of the

> > > above.)
> >
> > Jamie and I haven't finished our translation yet, but I wanted to
> > mention that I discovered this idiom in Zoëga: e-m vex e-t í augu,
> > 'one has scruples about'
>
> I haven't been doing the translations at all ... too much academic

workload

> on which I'm gettign actual grades ... but I happened to notice

this post.

>
> If I remember right, Michael Barnes suggests this (or a similar)

idiom

> can be equivalent to the english idiom "make a mountain out of".
> In other words, taking something relatively small and treating it
> as if it were huge and important.
>
> --
> Arlie
>
> (Arlie Stephens

arlie@...)