# It is better to arrive late in this world than early in the next



## seitt

Greetings,

Please, how do you say “It is better to arrive late in this world than early in the next.”?

It is a slogan aimed at discouraging motorists from speeding.

I first came across it in the original Hebrew Linguaphone course, by the way.

All the best, and many thanks,

Simon


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## origumi

A common phrase is מוטב לאבד רגע בחיים מאשר את החיים ברגע = _it's better losing a moment in life than life in a moment_. I cannot think about such slogan that refers to the next world.


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## seitt

Many thanks, still very useful - it seems to have acted as a trigger and helped me remember the original:

מוטב להגיע מאוחר בעולם הזה מאשר מוקדם בעולם הבא.

Please could you check what I've just written for errors?


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## origumi

seitt said:


> Please could you check what I've just written for errors?


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## seitt

Many thanks, excellent.


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## Egmont

seitt said:


> Many thanks, still very useful - it seems to have acted as a trigger and helped me remember the original:
> 
> מוטב להגיע מאוחר בעולם הזה מאשר מוקדם בעולם הבא.
> 
> Please could you check what I've just written for errors?


Shouldn't it be "...*ל*עולם הבא?"


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## origumi

Egmont said:


> Shouldn't it be "...*ל*עולם הבא?"


לעולם הבא = to the next world. The slogan is a pun made nifty thanks to the double meaning of "next" and of "in"/"to".


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## seitt

Hi again,

Could you please explain a bit more precisely what you mean by "The slogan is a pun made nifty thanks to the double meaning of "next" and of "in"/"to"."?


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## origumi

It's nothing in the Hebrew. "next" world is like "next bus station" but also "death". The slogan says "in" the next (world), but we should understand that speeding may take us "to" the next (world). Like the better known alternative I wrote above (losing a moment in life / life in a moment), where changing the word order twists the meaning by twisting the grammatical construct ("moment" becomes adverbial instead of noun).


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## seitt

Many thanks, all clear now.


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