# تسوّل لها نفسها



## eac

Hello,

I would like help figuring exactly what is being depicted by the author. (محمد الرميحي in today's edition of الحياة)



في شوارع طهران اليوم تلاحق الشرطة النسائية من تسول لها نفسها من نساء طهران إظهار ولو قصة صعيرة من شعرها خارج غطاء الرأس الرسمي.​

What is the meaning of تسول لها نفسها in this context? I assume the first ها refers to the police, but that would seem to suggest that women are being seduced by the police into showing their hair? But the police are also persecuting the women who show their hair. Some help would be appreciated.​


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## Tajabone

Hello,

The expression is known in classical Arabic and is also mentioned in the Quran.
Loosely speaking, I would say that the meaning is close to "being fooled by oneself". 
In order to get a full interpretation you should enlarge the context to include: 
من تسول لها نفسها من نساء طهران إظهار ولو قصة صعيرة من شعرها

I would then propose : those who fool themselves among Tehran's women, by showing even a tuft of (their) hair.

The expression to "fool yourself" is not the best one. The idea is rather to be guided by a fanciful idea or a mischievous one (the expression implies a pejorative tone since it concerns something held as bad that your imagination will consider as good).

Important note: I'm just translating, not blaming those poor Iranian women.


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## cherine

في شوارع طهران اليوم تلاحق الشرطة النسائية مَن تسول لها نفسُها مِن نساء طهران إظهار ولو قصة صعيرة من شعرها خارج غطاء الرأس الرسمي.​
I tried to play a bit with the colors to show what parts refers to what, I hope I didn't mess it too much  

So, we have man min nisaa2i Tihraan (which I can only translate into French for the moment: celle parmi les femmes de Tehran qui...) 
The pronoun "ha" refers to "man tusawwilu laha nafsuha" which could be roughly translated as "the one who gets the bad idea of..."

The expression تُسَوِّلُ له نفسُه or سَوَّلَتْ له نفسه means that someone had the "evil" or very bad idea of doing something. You'll find this expression in the Qur'an.
I don't know the exact mean of the verb sawwala but I don't remember ever seeing it used in any other way than this expression. 

If I'm not clear, please let me know.


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## eac

Thank you.

Is the لها necessary?  I don't see what its function is.


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## elroy

Yes, it is.  Let me try to parse the relevant part for you:

تسول - verb
لها - prepositional phrase (indirect object meaning)
نفسها - subject
إظهار - direct object

So it is the women's "selves" who تسول *to* the women إظهار...


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## eac

I see.  I gather the writer is being ironic, using a very dramatic expression for a very minor "crime."


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## elroy

Yes.  I agree.  An English equivalent in this context might be "those women who _had the audacity_ to..."


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## Tajabone

elroy said:


> An English equivalent in this context might be "those women who _had the audacity_ to..."


 
 Yes, loosely speaking, "audacity" could be accepted. Yet, the examples given in Lisan Al-'Arab are very clear about it:

- Audacity implies a volition, a conscious choice while تسوّل belongs to the semantic field of passions and inclinations (a kind of irresistible "natural" propensity).

- With "audacity", you dare, you challenge; with تسوّل  you find yourself wishing for or desiring something which could be either good or bad.

 This is, I think, a capital semantic divergence (volition _versus_ being attracted ... and trapped).
 The closest synonym or explanation in Arabic for تسوّل  is تزيين (to make beautiful or attractive). As for the additional info, "audacity" is rendered as جرأة.


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## suma

eac said:


> في شوارع طهران اليوم تلاحق الشرطة النسائية من تسول لها نفسها من نساء طهران إظهار ولو قصة صعيرة من شعرها خارج غطاء الرأس الرسمي.​


 
I'd translate it like this:
"Nowadays the Women's Corps of Tehran's police force may detain(approach) in the streets any woman so foolish enough to reveal but just a small tuft of hair from the imposed head scarf.

so foolish enough is a common parenthetical expression that I think fits well here.

I chose imposed instead of official as I believe the implied meaning suggests the strict wearing of the head scarf as imposed by religious authorities in gov't rather than an official uniform as might be worn by a femal civil servant.


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## elroy

"So foolish enough"?  What's the point of the "so"?  

As for "audacity," I agree that it's not the best translation.  I was mostly looking for an English expression that was also used in an exaggerated manner.


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## suma

elroy said:


> "So foolish enough"? What's the point of the "so"?


 
that's how the expression goes in English Elroy.


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## elroy

suma said:


> That's how the expression goes in English Elroy.


 Not that I know of.

I've always said, heard, read, and written "any woman foolish enough" (i.e. noun + adjective + _enough_). There's "any woman *so* foolish *as to*" but "any woman *so* foolish *enough*" sounds like a ridiculous redundancy.

A Google search for "was foolish enough" returns 92,700 results; add a "so" after "was" and you get a paltry 8 results. Try it with other adjectives and you get similar results. If you search for our exact expression, the results are even more telling: "woman foolish enough" - 684 results; "woman so foolish enough" - zero.

In fact, there are only 33 results for "so foolish enough" in any context - as opposed to 759,000 for "foolish enough."

I would appreciate your providing some sort of valid source that indicates that "so foolish enough" is good English.


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## suma

Elroy I appreciate your inputs regarding Arabic speech, especially Palestinian dialect, as you are a native speaker.

But *I am* a college educated native speaker of English. 
And any person _so foolish enough_ to place their confidence on what is acceptable English speech patterns solely upon a Google search, well ... what can I say. 

In fact both versions are quite common in English, but your insistance that yours is the only correct version is utterly ridiculous, pompous, and insulting to me.


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## elroy

If you look at my profile, you will see that I have English listed along with Arabic as a native language.

I did not use Google to determine correct English usage.  I objected to the phrase based on my own intuition and only used Google as support of my position when you stated that your version was "how the expression goes," implying that it was the only correct version.

I'm sorry you were insulted by my sharing my opinion about the correctness of the respective phrases.  I am of course willing to accept that "so foolish enough" is an acceptable variant if I am presented with enough evidence to support that.  So far I know that you think it's correct.  That's one native speaker's opinion - valuable, but not conclusive.  The phrase could be a common error, a regionalism, or a colloquial variant.


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## clevermizo

elroy said:


> Not that I know of.
> 
> I've always said, heard, read, and written "any woman foolish enough" (i.e. noun + adjective + _enough_). There's "any woman *so* foolish *as to*" but "any woman *so* foolish *enough*" sounds like a ridiculous redundancy.



I agree that "any woman so foolish enough" sounds weird. It just sounds like either a pedantic hypercorrection or a regional overuse of _so_.

But I grew up with two languages in my house, so my speech is a little strange sometimes.


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## suma

Elroy this is not the first time I've seen you speak (post) so conclusively against and dismissively of other's statements, only to soften your tone a bit later, and offer insincere apologies.

There's no doubt as to the conclusive tone of your post rebutting my use of "so". Nowhere in the original post did you concede that my usage could be an accetable variant or regionalism.

Rather than commenting on my translation of the original sentence started by Eac, you chose instead to focus on the incidental use of the 2 letter word "so", interesting


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## elroy

suma said:


> Elroy this is not the first time I've seen you speak (post) so conclusively against and dismissively of other's statements, only to soften your tone a bit later, and offer insincere apologies.


 This is a language forum. Everybody here is free to express his opinion about what he or she feels or thinks is acceptable. I simply shared my opinion about your wording, which I still feel is awkward, to say the least. In my second post, I did not deceptively soften my tone, but clarified that I was addressing the usage and not in any way attacking you - since you seemed to have taken my comments so personally. As for my apology, it _was_ sincere, but I guess there's no way I can prove that to you. I am indeed sorry that you felt my words were insulting, but there's no need to belabor that point since ultimately it's up to you to decide whether you'll believe me.


> There's no doubt as to the conclusive tone of your post rebutting my use of "so". Nowhere in the original post did you concede that my usage could be an accetable variant or regionalism.


 I didn't think I needed to. I shared my experience and offered some Google statistics that supported my points. I was expecting similar linguistic commentary from you. I got none.


> Rather than commenting on my translation of the original sentence started by Eac, you chose instead to focus on the incidental use of the 2 letter word "so", interesting


 I did not feel the need to comment on the translation. The word "so" sounded so odd to me that I felt compelled to ask about it. Par for the course in a language forum.

Putting on my moderator's hat, I will say that this discussion is off-topic in the thread, so if anyone else has anything else to say, please feel free to comment in the thread I started in the English Only forum, or to PM me with any personal comments. Thanks.


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