# ألعابهنّ اليابسة



## Josh_

In the following passage I was wondering if anyone could help me make sense of "ألعابهنّ اليابسة":

ولا تذكر إذا كانت هي قد غطّست قدميها في الماء ذلك اليوم أم لا. رغم تذكرها سيقان المسنّات وغير المسنّات من نساء الحيّ بشرايينهنّ النافرة وألعابهنّ اليابسة وكأنها قصت بمقصّ أو سكّين.​ 
It looks like it is literally "their dry games/toys," but that makes no sense in the context.  Even by itself "dry games/toys" does not make a whole lot of sense as one would not normally think of toys in terms of wetness and dryness.

I have tentatively translated the passage as:
_
   "She could not remember if she had put her feet in the water that day or not, despite remembering the legs of the old and young women of the neighborhood with their varicose veins and ______ which looked as though they had been cut with [either] a knife or a pair of scissors."_
(I assume that قصت is supposed to be passive here, despite the lack of harakaat to indicate that.)

Feel free to suggest other translations as well.


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## elroy

Their (rock-)hard toys.

In other words, they had toys with them that were not soft or plush.

The noun اليابسة means "dry land," but as an adjective يابس means "hard" or "firm" (as opposed to "soft").


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## ayed

*It could be :*
*their dried drool*


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## elroy

No, it can't be that, because "drool" would be لعاب and not ألعاب, and it's masculine so it would be لعابهم اليابس.  Furthermore, I would not use يابس for "dry"; I would say ناشف.  Finally, it doesn't make sense to me to say that someone's drool looked like it had been cut out of something using a knife or scissors.


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## ayed

elroy said:


> No, it can't be that, because "drool" would be لعاب and not ألعاب, and it's masculine so it would be لعابهم اليابس. Furthermore, I would not use يابس for "dry"; I would say ناشف. Finally, it doesn't make sense to me to say that someone's drool looked like it had been cut out of something using a knife or scissors.


  I do know it doesn't fit here but said so becuase the phrase comes right after :"..._with their varicose veins and..."(Josh)_


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## WadiH

Actually, I also tend to think that the writer is referring to saliva rather than toys, based on the context.


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## elroy

Is ألعاب the plural of لعاب?


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## WadiH

elroy said:


> Is ألعاب the plural of لعاب?



I don't know, but clearly the author seems to think so. 

S/he probably thought that لعابهن sounded awkward and so decided to use ألعابهن.  Perhaps it was meant as a plural of لَعَب.  I think Arabic is a flexible enough language to permit something like this, but I can't really say for sure.


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## cherine

I tend to think like Ayed and Wadi too, even though it's the first time for me to see the word ألعاب as a plural of lu3aab لعاب but the context (coming after شرايين) and that it's about old women, so the idea of "toys" looks a bit strange, at least to me.


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## djamal 2008

Apparently, there is only the plural form in the word saliva in arabic : 

مثلا : سال لعابه؛


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## djara

This is weird. If we rule out a typo, then maybe he's talking about "stiff/rigid games"; he's talking about old ladies with varicose veins, so maybe they have stiff joints. More context would certainly help.
By the way, where I come from  يابس means dry (قضى على الأخضر واليابس).
Maybe I'd also use "dip" instead of put her feet in the water.


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## AndyRoo

I see يابس can mean "stingy" or "mean", so perhaps "their cheap games/toys, which looked as though they'd been cut out with scissors or a knife."

or maybe "poorly-made toys"


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## xebonyx

ألا يجب أن يكون " تذكر*ت*" في البداية؟
أم هل هو  وصف عام يقابل 
  وهو أسلوب كتابة التألف؟"one can't remember"​


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## cherine

xebonyx said:


> ألا يجب أن يكون " تذكر*ت*" في البداية؟​
> 
> 
> 
> 
> أم هل هو وصف عام يقابل
> وهو أسلوب كتابة المؤلف/المؤلفة؟"one can't remember"​



لا يمكن استخدام الفعل في الماضي بعد "لا"، لذلك استخدمت المؤلفة الفعل المضارع. كما أن الجملة ترجمتها:​
"she doesn't remember".


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## xebonyx

cherine said:


> لا يمكن استخدام الفعل في الماضي بعد "لا"، لذلك استخدمت المؤلفة الفعل المضارع. كما أن الجملة ترجمتها:​
> "she doesn't remember".


 
مثلا "to remember" طبعا، معك حق. أظنني أخلّطت فعلين. تذكّر يعني
   يقول"أتذكّر يوم من الأيام كنت ..."، وليس "ذكر"، صحيح؟ فهذا هو السبب ان كنت متحيرة بشأن صيغة الفعل​


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## Josh_

Thanks for the interesting discussion, guys.  So, I guess the inclination is that the verb means saliva.  I must say, that seems almost as out of place as toys in this context.  

I had a thought, However.  Perhaps وكأنها قصت بمقصّ أو سكّين is referring to only شرايينهنّ النافرة despite it coming after ألعابهنّ اليابسة.   Is that possible? This might make a little more sense if we think about legs with varicose veins as looking like they had been cut up.


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## elroy

Josh_ said:


> Perhaps وكأنها قصت بمقصّ أو سكّين is referring to only شرايينهنّ النافرة despite it coming after ألعابهنّ اليابسة.   Is that possible?


 No, it's not.


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