# عذر أقبح من ذنب



## Bigtime

Is there any translation equivalent to عذر أقبح من ذنب in English?

Thanks.


----------



## shafaq

Not a literal but idiomatic equivalent: 
Add(ing) Insult To Injury


----------



## Bigtime

add insult to injury means زاد الطين بلة


----------



## إسكندراني

لم أرى هذا المثل من قبل، إن كان الغرض منه النهي عن التعذر المستمر فقد نقول
Stop making excuses!


----------



## étoile_brillante

> إن كان الغرض منه النهي عن التعذر المستمر فقد نقول
> Stop making excuses!



*عذر اقبح من الذنب *أي ان شخصا ما  قام بشيء/بفعل غير مقبول البتتة وحاول تبرير موقفه باختلاق مبررات او اعذار واهيه ، فيكون العذر او المبرر اشد من فعلته ومن مما قام به


----------



## إسكندراني

Your excuses are even worse than your sin.
هذه الترجمة الحرفية
اسأل في المنتدى الإنجليزي عن «أمثلة شعبية» توحي بنفس المعنى


----------



## Capt. Ahmad

I think I found it!

"An excuse worse than a sin."
"عذر أقبح من ذنب."

Somewhat idiomatic ترجمة شبه حرفية


----------



## djara

Consider this quotation from Alexander Pope: “An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie; for an excuse is a lie guarded”


----------



## Capt. Ahmad

What does it mean "for an excuse is a lie guarded"??


----------



## cherine

Maybe: العذر كذبة مُقَنَّعة


----------



## Mahaodeh

Capt. Ahmad said:


> "An excuse worse than a sin."
> "عذر أقبح من ذنب."


I don't think this is idiomatic, I've never heard it before. But I have heard "an apology worse than the offence". Even so, it's not really that common in English.​


cherine said:


> Maybe: العذر كذبة مُقَنَّعة


Not sure this is what it means, I think it might mean that an excuse is a means of protecting the lie - assuming the excuse is for lying in first place of course!


----------



## djara

cherine said:


> العذر كذبة مُقَنَّعة


I agree because 'guarded' means 'careful not to give too much information or show how you really feel'


----------



## elroy

Capt. Ahmad said:


> What does it mean "for an excuse is a lie guarded"??





cherine said:


> Maybe: العذر كذبة مُقَنَّعة


 I think it's something like العذر يُخفي الكذبة.

For عذر أقبح من ذنب (which is very commonly used in Palestinian Arabic), I might say "Your/The excuse is just making it worse" in English.


----------



## cherine

Maha and Elroy, I think you mis-read my translation, which is understandable since the diacritical marks are so small. I wrote muqanna3a=masked. So we do agree on the meaning.


----------



## Capt. Ahmad

Thank you so much everyone for your contributions.


----------



## oopqoo

elroy said:


> For عذر أقبح من ذنب (which is very commonly used in Palestinian Arabic), I might say "Your/The excuse is just making it worse" in English.


When you speak in Palestinian, do you pronounce it as: (I'm writing phonetically in Arabic letters, I know that no Palestinian would write as such in a chat for example)
عُزُر هَأْبَح من زَمْب
?
Because according to my dictionary نْب gets shifted to مْب as in جمب. There's just many Palestinian phenomenons here like ذ to ز and أَقْ to هَأْ and نْب to مْب so I'm curious. Or would you read it as فصحى? If so, then would each word separately, when appearing outside of this phrase, be pronounced as I wrote?


----------



## elroy

We basically pronounce it in MSA without case endings, with the exception of an epenthetic in عذر: 

_cuðor |aqbaħ min ðamb_

The assimilation of the “n” to the “b”, yielding an “m”, happens in MSA too.


----------



## oopqoo

Thank you  And outside of this expression, in general speech in PA, is each word:
_cuðor or cuzor?
|aqbaħ or ha2baħ?
ðamb or zamb?_


----------



## elroy

oopqoo said:


> _cuðor or cuzor?
> |aqbaħ  or ha|baħ?
> ðamb or zamb? _


 (I’m using | instead of 2 to avoid numbers in transliteration. )


----------

