# ما أكثر ما



## seta

Hi! I don't understand the meaning of this sentence. can you help me? thank you in advance!
فما اكثر ما نعمى عن رؤية الناس لمجرد انهم عميان


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## Faylasoof

فما اكثر ما نعمى عن رؤية الناس لمجرد انهم عميان 

Too often we are blind to / ignore the vision of the people simply / only because they are blind.


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## Outlandish

Seta, I feel that this sentence is not correct, as to the meaning it wants t convey. Probably, a non-native composed it. If so, what is the context and what does he/she want to say?


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## Faylasoof

I was wondering about this but thought to have a go anyway!


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## seta

hi!! اthe sentence is taken from a short story of Yusuf Idris, Bait min lahm..that deals with a poor widow and her three daughters whose life changes after the widow'wedding with a blind boy..all the women in the house have sex with the boy..
نعم يا بنات , غدا يجيء الرجال و يهل العرسان .ولكن الحق ان ما اصبح يشغلها ليسا الرجال او العرسان و لكنه ذلك الشاب. كفيف فليكن, فما اكثر ما نعمى 
...........


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## Outlandish

Oh! I see!
Well, in a literary work, it makes sense.


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## seta

I am still confused...Fayloosuf's translation sounds good...but WHY didn't he translate the second ما? the verb is preceded by a negation..


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## shafaq

Yes ! He omitted it. But it is not for negation there. Just it means ".. that .." (conjunction أَدَاة  عَطْف ) . You may place it after "Too often ..." but doesn't cause a sensibel shift in meaning.


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## Faylasoof

I agree Shafaq! Just noticed Seta's objection!

Sometimes in translation it makes sense to drop some things for better readability - but without loss of meaning.


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## cherine

Faylasoof said:


> فما اكثر ما نعمى عن رؤية الناس لمجرد انهم عميان
> 
> Too often we are blind to / ignore the vision of the people simply / only because they are blind.


I wouldn't use "the vision of the people", but I like the rest of the translation 
Here's my suggestion:
How often do we fail to see the people just because they are blind.

I think he (Yusuf Idris) wants to say that people don't see a blind man and that this is wrong. If the blind can't see us, this doesn't mean we should be blind to him too (not see him or ignore him).



seta said:


> I am still confused...Fayloosuf's translation sounds good...but WHY didn't he translate the second ما? the verb is preceded by a negation..


As you see, Faylasoof translated it "Too often", I translated it "how often", so the first ما is not a negation tool, it's like the English expression "how+adj." or "how+adv.": how big, how small, how often, how rare.... It's called ما التعجبية the second ما is only a part of this structure, it doesn't indicate a negation either.


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## seta

thank you all the people! Cherine your advice is precious! me too I misunderstood انصب with نصب ....


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## Xence

cherine said:


> the second ما is only a part of this structure, it doesn't indicate a negation either.


In fact, it is called *ما المصدرية* (غير الظرفية)ا . That means we can rewrite the sentence this way:
فما أكثر عَمَانا عن رؤية الناس لمجرد أنهم عميان


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## suma

Faylasoof said:


> فما اكثر ما نعمى عن رؤية الناس لمجرد انهم عميان
> 
> Too often we are blind to / ignore the vision of the people simply / only because they are blind.


 
In all of the translations given I would drop "the" that preceeds "people" and say instead: *... we are blind to people (certain people) simply because they (themselves) are blind.*


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## פפאיה

Xence said:


> In fact, it is called *ما المصدرية* (غير الظرفية)ا . That means we can rewrite the sentence this way:
> فما أكثر عَمَانا عن رؤية الناس لمجرد أنهم عميان


 
Hi,

Yey! Another ما to the collection. What does it do? How is it used? I understand that it is not realted to اكثر as it sometimes does (as in دائما ما and others). I would be glad for an explanation.


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## Josh_

This question probably deserves its own thread, but you can check my posts here and here for a short explanation.


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## Faylasoof

cherine said:


> I wouldn't use "the vision of the people", but I like the rest of the translation
> Here's my suggestion:
> How often do we fail to see the people just because they are blind.
> 
> I think he (Yusuf Idris) wants to say that people don't see a blind man and that this is wrong. If the blind can't see us, this doesn't mean we should be blind to him too (not see him or ignore him)…..


 I see! So that’s what Yusuf Idris is trying to say. I thought he meant that the blind have “vision” too – which they do, not in the sense of sight, but imagination /ability talent - but we ignore them just because they handicapped. But what he actually means is that we ignore the “sight of a blind person” i.e. we don’t see them.

So apart from your suggestion above, I’d change my original to:

_Too often we are blind to / ignore people just / simply because they are blind._



suma said:


> In all of the translations given I would drop "the" that preceeds "people" and say instead: *... we are blind to people (certain people) simply because they (themselves) are blind.*


 Suma, the point to remember is that the above translation was presented as one sentence with the following alternate readings:

_Too often we are blind to the vision of the people simply / only because they are blind._
[Here it is OK to keep the definite article.]

Or

_Too often we are blind to / ignore people simply / only because they are blind._

It depends how one reads the alternate forms, leaving aside the comments made by Cherine about the first, which I’ve already dealt with above.


פפאיה said:


> Yey! Another ما to the collection. What does it do? How is it used? I understand that it is not realted to اكثر as it sometimes does (as in دائما ما and others). I would be glad for an explanation.


 Hi,
ما المصدرية  is gerundival.

It gives the following perfect or imperfect verb a gerund meaning. A particle that is often seen after locative nouns such as بعد, قبل, عند, حين etc. Not necessarily followed by a verb.

As Josh says, we need a separate thread for this. But just for your info there nearly 9-10 different types of ما!


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