Íslenzka.net ~ An Icelandic Journey

I really like to study words that are similar in appearance (homonym-like), mainly because they tend to confuse me 🙂 In this case, it’s words that have hætt in them:

First we have the verb að hætta:

Next is the feminine noun hætta:

It’s not just that the words are identical in their base form, it’s that the conjugated/declined forms are also similar which can cause confusion. Fortunately the meaning is usually clear from the context.

There’s an article from RÚV from last fall that is a great example of both words in action:
Reykingar hættulegri en áður var talið – Smoking More Dangerous Than Previously Thought.

The title itself contains the comparative form of the adjective
hættulegur – dangerous.

Let’s just look at the first paragraph:
“Konur sem hætta að reykja geta lengt líf sitt um tíu ár eða meira. Niðurstöður nýrrar breskrar rannsóknar sýna að hættan sem reykingar valda er meiri en talið var og að aldrei sé of seint að hætta að reykja.”

The first sentence has an example of the verb to stop (að hætta):

Konur sem hætta að reykja geta lengt líf sitt um tíu ár eða meira.
Women who stop smoking can extend their lives by 10 or more years.

In the second we see hætta twice, each with a different meaning:

Niðurstöður nýrrar breskrar rannsóknar sýna að hættan sem reykingar valda er meiri en talið var og að aldrei sé of seint að hætta að reykja.
Results of new British research show that the danger from smoking is greater than was thought, and that it is never too late to quit.

And just for fun, the word háttur has a vowel shift in its declension which allows it to join our discussion 🙂

But we’ll leave the I-shift for another day…