āSie liegen mir am Herzen.ā
When you care about something, or āsomethingās [near and dear] to your heartā, then
ā_ liegt dir am Herzenā. I found the reference, but no one that Iām aware of would say āim Herzenā, because that sounds literal rather than figurative. Then again āam Herzen liegenā is mostly used for events or circumstances, less so for people.
So, I take it youāre doing something similar. In this case, Iād like to take the opportunity to ask if that verse was meant to sound literal, for one reason or another, or if the fact that it is so now is due to an idiomatic change over timeāaccording to Wikipedia, the song is ābelieved to have originated in northern Germany around 1820.ā
Then again, I have this friend of German heritage and sometimes Iāll make a joke and heāll answer in all seriousness, and Iāll do the same, so weāll go back and forth and embark in a long tangent until one of us finally asks: āYou do know that I was just joking, right?ā I never did ask if that had cultural roots, so maybe your reply and my post share the same playful spirit?
Oh, I just thought if Iām going to correct the grammar (āSie liegenā), I might as well update the phrase to be more idiomatic with respect to contemporary German. In a āthe more you knowā kind of way.
Itās obviously the figurative sense as in āyouāre important to meā, though the point could be made that it was the authorās intention to convey [you are within my heart] in a sense of āi always think feel of youā (in my heart). Thatās defensible, because it would create a bit of an antithesis within the first 2 lines (loosely: i feel you in my heart, i think of you in my mind).
But that would require a wholly different construction altogether if weāre going for contemporary German.
So Plato it is. It rather suits you, smurph. Thank you for such a beautiful post.
(still canāt tag anybody without making the Chrome tab crash ā¦ anoek?)
smurph, lucasfelix:
(assuming that this is what lucasfelix was referring to)
Iāve been checking for updates, nothing so far
I canāt tag anyone without making the computer crash, trohde.
But yes, thatās what I was referring to. Itās Hermann Preyās rendition that really makes me want to smoke a cigarette and think about stuff, though:
Updates seem to be live now. All strings seem to use āDuā now. Besides some other wording fixes, i did.
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