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Bewenden

quarta-feira 24 de janeiro de 2024

2. ‘Es hat mit ihm bei etwas sein Bewenden.’ The terms ‘Bewenden’ and ‘Bewandtnis’ are among the most difficult for the translator. Their root meaning has to do with the way something is already ‘turning’ when one lets it ‘go its own way’, ‘run its course’, follow its ‘bent’ or ‘tendency’, or finish ‘what it is about’, ‘what it is up to’ or ‘what it is involved in’. The German expressions, however, have no simple English equivalents, but are restricted to a rather special group of idioms such as the following, which we have taken from Wildhagen and Héraucourt’s admirable English-German, German-English Dictionary (Volume II, Wiesbaden 1953): ‘es dabei bewenden lassen’ – ‘to leave it at that, to let it go at that, to let it rest there’; ‘und dabei hatte es sein Bewenden’ – ‘and there the matter ended’; ‘dabei muss es sein Bewenden haben’ – ‘there the matter must rest’ – ‘that must suffice’; ‘die Sache hat eine ganz andere Bewandtnis’ – ‘the case is quite different’; ‘damit hat es seine besondere Bewandtnis’ – ‘there is something peculiar about it; thereby hangs a tale’; ‘damit hat est folgende Bewandtnis’ – ‘the matter is as follows’. [BTMR  ]