# Norwegian: i levende live



## timtfj

Fra en tweet: "Du trodde jeg skulle få høre Aristoteles forelese *i levende live*?"

Hva betyr *i levende live* her?



You thought I'd get to hear Aristotle lecturing *in real life*?
You thought I'd get to hear a *live* lecture by Aristotle?
You thought I'd get to hear a *real live* Aristotle lecturing?
You thought I'd get to hear a *live-and-kicking* Aristotle lecturing?

Tim


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## NorwegianNYC

It sort of goes with all of them


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## bicontinental

I just wanted to add that this is an older expression which is clearly pleonastic, likely for the sake of emphasis when the shorter forms ‘_ i live’ _or _‘levende’ _seem to be too tame or neutral.

  Grammatically speaking, I’d call it a prepositional phrase; here it modifies Aristotle (and not the lecture, as in your second sentence).

  Bic.


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## Kadabrium

_live _does resemble an old dative case..


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## Ben Jamin

timtfj said:


> Fra en tweet: "Du trodde jeg skulle få høre Aristoteles forelese *i levende live*?"
> 
> Hva betyr *i levende live* her?
> 
> 
> You thought I'd get to hear Aristotle lecturing *in real life*?
> You thought I'd get to hear a *live* lecture by Aristotle?
> You thought I'd get to hear a *real live* Aristotle lecturing?
> You thought I'd get to hear a *live-and-kicking* Aristotle lecturing?
> 
> For me it's the variant 4. that is most probable meaning.
> 
> Tim


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## Ben Jamin

timtfj said:


> Fra en tweet: "Du trodde jeg skulle få høre Aristoteles forelese *i levende live*?"
> 
> Hva betyr *i levende live* her?
> 
> 
> You thought I'd get to hear Aristotle lecturing *in real life*?
> You thought I'd get to hear a *live* lecture by Aristotle?
> You thought I'd get to hear a *real live* Aristotle lecturing?
> You thought I'd get to hear a *live-and-kicking* Aristotle lecturing?
> 
> Tim


In my opinion it's the variant 4. which is the most plausible


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## NorwegianNYC

Hi tim

Since _i levende live_ is idiomatic, it can be applied to all of them - with an exception of the second one.


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## Kadabrium

This brings up an old question of mine.
I searched for the equivalent Icelandic phrase _í lifandi lífi,_ but the results suggest that the more common form is_ í lifand*a* lífi,_
 where the present participle agrees with_ lífi_ in gender (the same declension as comparative adjectives, I assume). 
However, as discussed in http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2702855&highlight=participle
the present participle is generally indeclinable in the modern language.
Is this a relic of the old declension? Can any of you come up with more such instances


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## Alxmrphi

Kadabrium said:


> Is this a relic of the old declension? Can any of you come up with more such instances


Yes, it is.

There was a famous _íslenskufræðingur _who wrote articles about Icelandic in one of the national papers for over 20 years and I found something he wrote here.


> Eggert Hauksson í Kópavogi sendi mér klippu hér úr blaðinu 9. sept. sl., en þar segir um Glenn Miller: "Dularfullur dauðdagi Millers árið 1944 gerði hann síðan að goðsögn í lifanda lífi ..." Þarna held ég færi betur að kalla G.M. þjóðsagnapersónu. En þar fyrir utan kemur það kynduglega út að segja að dularfullur dauðdagi hans hafi gert hann að "goðsögn" í lifanda lífi. Aftur á móti finnst mér gott að sjá hér gamla beygingu lýsingarháttar nútíðar, *lifanda*. Það bætir nokkuð úr skák.



Explanation: He's talking about how weird it can be to use 'myth/legend' to describe someone and suggests an alternative. The example quoted says 'his mysterious death made him a legend _í lifanda lífi'_. Then in the part in blue he says on the other hand he's happy to see the old declension of the present participle, _lifanda, _because it makes it sound a little better.


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## timtfj

Thanks for all these replies. For some reason I didn't get notification emails so didn't see them sooner.

I meant to include a fifth alternative:



You thought I'd get to hear Aristotle lecturing *in the flesh*?

---i.e. "as a living person, right in front of me".

If the phrase can only modify _Aristoteles,_ then I think "in real life" is ruled out too, since that means something like "in my real life, rather than in a fantasy". I'd say it refers to my life or that of the people attending, not Aristotle's life.

Now, there's more than one reason why Aristotle can't give a lecture:



He's dead (as opposed to alive).
He's somewhere else (as opposed to present and able to give a live performance rather than, say, one on video).

Does *i levende live* imply one of those more than the other? Is the main point that he is alive, or that he is present?

Thanks in advance!
Tim

PS in case you're wondering, the context was an "Aristoteles-forelesning" given at the Lyceum. It was of course a lecture about Aristotle, but I'd been joking about Aristotle being the lecturer.


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## NorwegianNYC

It would normally imply that the person is dead. However, it is sometimes used about a big surprise (jeg så en elefant i levende live). It would not be used about your second alternative


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## timtfj

NorwegianNYC said:


> It would normally imply that the person is dead. However, it is sometimes used about a big surprise (jeg så en elefant i levende live). It would not be used about your second alternative


I think I've got it now. Do these examples seem right?



Jeg har jo hørt ham *i levende live!* Han døde i 2001, men konserten var i 1998.---_I really have heard him *in the flesh!* He died in 2001, but the concert was in 1998._

Implication: I heard him while he was still alive.



I dag var jeg i Manchester, og i Market Street stod en elefant i levende live!---_I was in Manchester today, and there was an elephant in Market Street, *large as life!*_
Implication: there's no way you'd expect to see an elephant in Market Street, but yes, there was a live elephant there.



Bli varsom hvis du besøker dem. Som husdyr har de en leopard *i levende live!*---_Be careful if you visit them. They have a *real live* leopard as a pet!_

Implication: anything in someone's house that looks like a leopard can't possibly be one. But theirs really is a living leopard.


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## timtfj

Ah. Although _Bokmålsordboka_ doesn't include *i levende live*, _Den Danske Ordbog_ does. Their definition of the Danish version is



> i levende tilstand; i den tid vedkommende lever



and its explanation of the grammar is



> kasusformen _live_ styret af præposition _i_ er bevaret fra ældre dansk



So maybe I'd be best understanding it as meaning "*actually alive*" or "*while still alive*", assuming its Norwegian meaning is the same as its Danish one?


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## NorwegianNYC

timtfj said:


> Jeg har jo hørt ham *i levende live!* Han døde i 2001, men konserten var i 1998.---_I really have heard him *in the flesh!* He died in 2001, but the concert was in 1998._
> 
> Yes
> 
> 
> 
> I dag var jeg i Manchester, og i Market Street stod en elefant i levende live!---_I was in Manchester today, and there was an elephant in Market Street, *large as life!*_
> 
> Yes
> 
> 
> 
> Bli varsom hvis du besøker dem. Som husdyr har de en leopard *i levende live!*---_Be careful if you visit them. They have a *real live* leopard as a pet!_
> 
> No. It would imply that they had a leopard that was alive, as opposed to other leopards, that are not. In the latter sentence, one would use *en levende leopard*


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## bicontinental

timtfj said:


> So maybe I'd be best understanding it as meaning "*actually alive*" or "*while still alive*", assuming its Norwegian meaning is the same as its Danish one?




  Here are my thoughts (albeit from a *Danish* perspective, but I think the meaning and usages of this idiom are very similar in the two languages…if not, I expect someone to correct me ) 

Most of the translations in your posts above could work depending on the context. In general, though, _i levende live_ seems to be used in contexts where the speaker wants to emphasize a contrast with death, either because the person is indeed deceased or because he was assumed to be. 
_Jeg drømte at jeg så min bedstemor igen, *i levende live*._ (My grandmother is deceased, example in Danish)
_Familien til den russiske fiskeren Andrei Lunev fikk sjokk da de så han *i levende live* på TV forrige uke. De trodde han hadde omkommet på sjøen for tre år siden._ (Example in Norwegian from Google)

In other situations (such as your 'animal examples' in post # 12), it doesn’t really work well in my opinion, and _levende _would be a better choice, (_der stod en levende elefant på gaden; de har en levende tiger i baghaven _osv. Examples in Danish)

If I want to express the idea that I met someone in person, (someone who is alive…maybe as opposed to seeing him on TV), I wouldn´t use _i levende live_, but “in person” (_ i egen person, “in persona”_). 
_Jeg mødte Kong Harald_ _i egen (høje) person, (_not_ jeg mødte Kong Harald i levende live, _Examples in Danish_)
_
A question for the Norwegians: in Danish the adjective-participle _levende _may be modified by various intensifiers, e.g. *lys-*levende,* spil*-levende (spiillevende), *spræl*-levende (sprællevende), e.g.
_Der stod en lyslevende elefant på gaden._(Example in Danish)
  What kind of modifiers do you use with levende…?
  Bic.


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## NorwegianNYC

Yes, in the elephant scenario, we also have options like *lys levende, spill levende, sprell levende* etc.
Jeg så en lys levende elefant means the same as Jeg så en elefant i levende live, however - the former is better (as bic says)


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## Kadabrium

^If it were a dinosaur, I personally would probably use _i levende live_ instead. 

I've always got a strange feeling that _i levende live_ qualifies the object seen, but _levende _alone also qualifies the person's own experience
 although the literal forms suggest the exact opposite.

Still confused, maybe mistaken.


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## NorwegianNYC

Indeed - it does qualify the object. It is an hyperbole that has taken a life of its own. It is normally used about something that cannot be experienced since the object is non-existent, but sometimes it is used about experiencing and object you never though you would see in a particular location (even if the object is alive and well)


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