# -kseen, -kseni jne.



## Gavril

What does _kuollakseen _mean in the following context? :
(Aiheena on influenssarokotusjonot.)
_
Oikeasti kaikki haluaisivat etuilla kuollakseen, mutta kukaan ei uskalla. Siksi ketään ei myöskään haluta päästää jonon ohi. Miksi se muka pääsisi ensin? Kitukoon, kuten kaikki muutkin. _

"Really, everyone would like to cut in line [so they can die??], but no one can work up the nerve to. Therefore, people don't want to move anyone to the front of the line, either. Why is that one going first? Let him endure it, like all the rest."

K


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## Grumpy Old Man

_Kuollakseen_ has nothing to do with dying in this idiomatic usage. It means people would very much like to cut in line. As the expression is very stong, you can of course use a stronger wording in English, too. Actually, even in English one could say: _People are *dying* to cut in line... _Perhaps _people are *burning with desire* to cut in line_ could also be used?

My suggestions may not sound perfect to a native ear but I'm sure you can think of better ones now that you know the meaning. (By the way, in Britain most people would say _jump the queue_ instead of _cut in line._)


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## Hakro

Note that in the original sentence there is a mistake of word order:

- kaikki haluaisivat etuilla kuollakseen = everyone would like to cut in line to get killed
- kaikki haluaisivat kuollakseen etuilla = everyone is dying to cut in line
(The word "kuollakseen" is correlated to the verb "haluta", not "etuilla", so it should be placed immediately after the verb it's correlated to.

By the way, also my dictionary gives only _jump the queue _and _queue-jump_ for "etuilla".


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## Perkele

I believe Americans tend to use _line_ where Brits would use _queue_. There's also derived terms that differ:

to queue - to stand in line
to jump the queue - to cut in line


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## Grumpy Old Man

Hakro said:


> (The word "kuollakseen" is correlated to the verb "haluta", not "etuilla", so it should be placed immediately after the verb it's correlated to.


I trust Hakro knows what he is talking about and Kielitoimisto would probably recommend the word order he suggests. I would just like to say that the original sentence sounds very good and natural to my native Finnish ear and I wouldn't hesitate to use the same word order myself.


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## Duracell

Hakro said:


> Note that in the original sentence there is a mistake of word order:
> 
> - kaikki haluaisivat etuilla kuollakseen = everyone would like to cut in line to get killed
> - kaikki haluaisivat kuollakseen etuilla = everyone is dying to cut in line
> (The word "kuollakseen" is correlated to the verb "haluta", not "etuilla", so it should be placed immediately after the verb it's correlated to.



To me mistakes like this (in word order) sound funny. "Kaikki haluaisivat etuilla kuollakseen" in written language sounds quite bad (because, as Hakro explained, it means that these people want to die) and it makes me think the writer doesn't know Finnish grammar too well.

Although, in spoken language mistakes like this are used all the time and it's normal.


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