--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "johanniszwart" <jhpzwart@...>
wrote:
>
> I'm not sure if "dog" was a positive word in the time of the old-
norse
> language


Well, it could be an insult applied to a person, but people liked
good dogs as well (judging from the literature), and 'hundr' appears
sometimes as a name or nickname. There are some famously loyal dogs
in the sagas:

http://penguin.pearson.swarthmore.edu/~scrist1/scanned_books/png/oi_c
leasbyvigfusson/b0292.png

Although a Faroese proverb warns against tying your dog to the
butter tub... You did pretty well making a Norse sentence, I
think. In my experiencem, 'ætt' is family more in the sense
of "lineage", the people you are descended from. 'frændr' are
relatives; maybe this would be better? Tentative suggestion:

ek varða frændr mína sem hundr

...or even 'sem ólmr hundr' "like a mad/wild dog"!! I'm not sure
how positive that is though, but at least it lets your enemies know
what to expect :) By the way, 'varða' belongs to a class of verbs
which have -a in the first person singular. Luckily the inflections
mean that there's no ambiguity (as there is in English) about who is
being likened to a dog, you or your family!

Llama Nom