----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, November 02, 2005 12:48
PM
Subject: [norse_course] Re: Honum var
allt illa gefit,
--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com,
Haukur Þorgeirsson
<haukurth@......>
wrote:
> To me this means something like "utterly wretched". I don't
think it
really means "evil" as much as "incompetent" or "a human of
low-
quality" in general.
> H: Hvað þýðir fyrir þér: "honum var
allt illa gefið"?
> A: "Hann var engum mannkostum búinn."
Right,
and that parliamentary quote was pretty explicit that it didn't
mean a
malign bill, just a badly worded one. So where's all this
wickedness
coming from? Could it be just that the particular examples
from
sagas that we've found have all used the phrase meaning "useless"
but
happen to have applied in an a context where it could also be
taken by
implication to refer to, or include, moral qualities?
For
'mannkostir' two online dictionaries have:
ordabok.is--------qualities;
(US: caliber) calibre; character
Icelandic Online--qualities, good points
(of a person's character, etc)
> All his qualities which he himself
had control over were bad.
Now to me, curiously enough, "bad qualities"
(of a person) would
suggest morally bad or at least socially unpleasant or
liable to cause
some harm or trouble. You can have "moral calibre",
but a person
of "low calibre" might just be someone of "poor quality", not
up to
doing their job.
"[good] qualities" and "good points" could
include all sorts of
positive things that aren't necessarily morally good
I guess. You
could be a genocidal maniac, but be nice to your pet
cat. That would
be a good point. Especially for the cat.
But just having a good
public speaking voice might not count, particularly
if you were
putting it using it to accomplish your nefarious ends.
So I suppose
the "good points" of a wicked person could include morally
good things
(generous, nice to animals) or pleasantly neutral things
(accomplished
watercolourist, good sense of humour), but not so much
abilities that
might be good qualities in other people who don't put them
to evil
uses. That's just the feeling I get about these expressions
anyway.
But now (now?) it gets complicated cos we have to decide what
sort of
qualities medieval people (who hadn't heard of Einstein, Benjamin
Libet, the Block Universe hypothesis, Freud, sociology, etc.) believed
a person was responsible for. A sunny disposition?
Warts? Courage?
He must have some courage to be a great
'kappi'--or maybe he was an
armchair 'kappi', leading from safely behind
his 'skjaldborg'?
Brainstorming synonyms, I'm tempted to rephrase in
the interests of
sounding more natural. Not sure if these are quite
there yet.
1) "There wasn't a good thing to be said for him, as far as
those
qualities went that he himself was accountable for."
2) "As
far as those qualities were concerned that he had any control
over, he was
a complete washout."
3) "Those qualities that he himself was
responsible for were a sorry
bunch."
4) "He hadn't so much as one
redeeming feature, at least not any
[that] he himself was resonsible
for."
I like 1 or 4 the best (3 sounds a bit silly as if the traits are
being personified), but 1 and 4 might still imply that these are
moraly dubious qualities. 'washout' is more "useless" and "no
good".
> London is nice. Fine weather here, snowstorms back home.
Want to get
together over a pint and finish Ellisifjardrápa?
:)
Argh, Ellisifjardrápa! The nightmare lives! And will be
revisited.
Man, what I wouldn't give for a nice snowstorm
here...
Llama Nom