# lytätä



## Gavril

Päivää,

I've seen the word "lytätä" come up in a lot of news articles recently. It seems to have a few different meanings depending on the context. For example, here it seems to mean "dismiss":

- _*Poliisin ale-ruokkija lyttää kritiikin*
_"Police discount seller dismisses critique"

Here, it seems to mean "bash" (= "strongly criticize"):

- _*Vihreä konkari lyttää ydinvoiman*_
"Veteran Green politician bashes nuclear power"

In some other contexts, it seems to mean "reduce (something to something else)" -- I recall seeing sentences like,

- _*Maailman nälkäongelmat ei voidaan lytätä puhtaaksi rahakysymykseksi.
*_"World hunger cannot be reduced to a purely monetary issue."

Would you say that these are accurate translations of _lytätä _in the contexts given? Are there any other meanings of _lytätä _that I haven't covered here?

Kiitoksia paljon!


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## reamary

Hmm, I think it might have a few different meanings depending on the context, but I'm not quite sure it is totally correct in all of the phrases above. I don't actually understand the first phrase in Finnish, I mean _*ale-ruokkija *_is not a Finnish word, so I think _discount seller _should be translated to something else. But I don't have a translation to suggest, since I'm not quite sure what's the meaning of _discount seller_. Also, I'm not sure if you can say *lyttää kritiikin*. I mean cause it seems a little controversial that way, since *lytätä* is a verb with a negative connotation in itself already, and obviously _critique_ is often used in a negative sense, so it doesn't really make sense to me to use them together. I'd rather say that when someone for example_ strongly criticizes a movie_, you could say that _*"hän lyttää elokuvan"*.

_As for the second phrase, I think that's fine. 

Finally the third phrase, here *lytätä* again doesn't really make sense to me. I don't think it means _reduce_, in any context. Perhaps what you're looking for is something like *tiivistää* or _*supistaa*_ in this context:

_-Maailman nälkäongelm*ia* ei *voida* *tiivistää/supistaa *puhtaaksi rahakysymykseksi_. 

The basic meaning for *lytätä* is _to bash _or _to crush_, whether it means literally or figuratively.


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## Gavril

reamary said:


> Hmm, I think it might have a few different meanings depending on the context, but I'm not quite sure it is totally correct in all of the phrases above. I don't actually understand the first phrase in Finnish, I mean _*ale-ruokkija *_is not a Finnish word, so I think _discount seller _should be translated to something else. But I don't have a translation to suggest, since I'm not quite sure what's the meaning of _discount seller_. Also, I'm not sure if you can say *lyttää kritiikin*. I mean cause it seems a little controversial that way, since *lytätä* is a verb with a negative connotation in itself already,



The sentence "Poliisin ale-ruokkija lyttää kritiikin" is a headline from this Uusi Suomi article. _ale-ruokkija_ appears to be a creation of the article's writer (all the Google results seem to be references to this article): in context, it refers to someone who gives discounts to uniformed police officers at the restaurants he manages.

Not all of the words used in this article are necessarily kirjakielellisiä, but it seems as though _lyttää kritiikin_ could be translated "bashes the critique" or similar in this context.



> Finally the third phrase, here *lytätä* again doesn't really make sense to me. I don't think it means _reduce_, in any context.


 
Maybe a better translation of _lytätä _+ _-ksi _is "to bash/criticize as", e.g., _lytätä järjettömäksi _"to criticize (something) as senseless". It doesn't seem to be very common usage, and is probably not (yet) considered kirjakielellinen, but I do think I've seen examples of it.

Jippii, 2000:nnes viesti tällä palstalla! Minulta meni vain viisi vuotta ja puoli sen saavuttamiseen.


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## reamary

Gavril said:


> The sentence "Poliisin ale-ruokkija lyttää kritiikin" is a headline from this Uusi Suomi article. _ale-ruokkija_ appears to be a creation of the article's writer (all the Google results seem to be references to this article): in context, it refers to someone who gives discounts to uniformed police officers at the restaurants he manages.
> 
> Not all of the words used in this article are necessarily kirjakielellisiä, but it seems as though _lyttää kritiikin_ could be translated "bashes the critique" or similar in this context.



Ah alright, I read the article and now it makes sense to me, I mean even that word, since it's an "invented" one. 




Gavril said:


> Maybe a better translation of _lytätä _+ _-ksi _is "to bash/criticize as", e.g., _lytätä järjettömäksi _"to criticize (something) as senseless". It doesn't seem to be very common usage, and is probably not (yet) considered kirjakielellinen, but I do think I've seen examples of it.



Hmm, maybe. Though I think that in the last phrase some other verb would still work better than *lytätä*. Could you explain the meaning of the phrase a little more, I mean the English one _"World hunger cannot be reduced to a purely monetary issue"_?



Gavril said:


> Jippii, 2000:nnes viesti tällä palstalla! Minulta meni vain viisi vuotta ja puoli sen saavuttamiseen.



Onnittelut!  (ps. It's better if you change the word order a bit and say _"viisi ja puoli vuotta"_  )


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## Gavril

reamary said:


> Could you explain the meaning of the phrase a little more, I mean the English one _"World hunger cannot be reduced to a purely monetary issue"_?



Sorry, I'd forgotten about your question. I meant that the question of world hunger has to do with more than just money, and can't be discussed as if there were no other issues involved.

That sentence was made up by me, and I'm realizing that it may not have been a good example of _lytätä + -ksi. _I have found examples of this construction online, but in all of the examples that I can remember, _lytätä _can be translated "criticize (as)" rather than "dismiss (as)". In other words, as far as I recall, the word ending in _-ksi _is always an adjective or noun with a negative meaning: _hölypölyksi_, _typeräksi_, jne.


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