Thrasymachus77 comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 25, chapter 96 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: NancyLebovitz 25 July 2013 04:36AM

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Comment author: solipsist 25 July 2013 04:46:29PM *  6 points [-]

In case anybody else made the same mistake as I did, the two bits of Old English are the same.

Thrayen beyn Peverlas soona ahnd thrih heera toal thissoom Dath bey yewoonen.

and

Þregen béon Pefearles suna and þrie hira tól þissum Déað béo gewunen.

Three shall be Peverell's sons and three their devices by which Death shall be defeated.

Comment author: Thrasymachus77 25 July 2013 08:17:42PM 2 points [-]

According to the Olde English Translator, gewunen doesn't mean defeated or destroyed. It's the present subjunctive plural form of the verb gewunian, which means "to remain continue stand to habituate oneself to" which puts me in mind of "tolerate" or "get used to."

Comment author: topynate 25 July 2013 09:36:27PM *  4 points [-]

Perhaps gewunnen, meaning conquered, and not gewunen. I don't think you can use present subjunctive after béo anyway. Here béo is almost surely the 3rd person singular subjunctive of béon, the verb that we know as to be. If gewunnen, then we can interpret it as being the past participle, which makes a lot more sense (and fits the provided translation). The past participle of gewunian is gewunod, which clearly isn't the word used here.

Edit: translator's automatic conjugation is broken, sorry for copy-paste.

Comment author: Thrasymachus77 25 July 2013 10:19:33PM 2 points [-]

Good catch, I wasn't even thinking if there were a different, related verb that might be used there, nor of the particular grammar. That's just where that form gewunen showed up in the translator.

If the verb is winnan or gewinnan, the past participle would be gewunnen. In either case, the sense is conquering to obtain, or alternatively resisting, struggling against, enduring or suffering. And there are less ambiguous words to use if the sense was that Death would be defeated and eliminated, i.e. destroyed, or even mastered or overcome.

In other words, it still looks ambiguous enough to me that it could mean that "...three shall be their devices by which Death shall be tolerated."

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