Quote:
Originally Posted by Tsunami
A question for Hebrew speakers (there's a few on this forum... I studied Hebrew but my level is intermediate rather than advanced): the last part of the song contains the line "anachnu dor metzuyan" which literally translates as "we are an armed generation". That line sounds a bit odd. Can "metzuyan" mean anything else (even if in slang)? It just sounds odd because there are no references to weapons or anything like that in the rest of the lyrics.
If the translation would be too explicit for the forum, PM it to me. Just trying to fully understand the song.
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Actually the word in the
Hebrew lyrics is "mezuyan" which is (in its slang interpretation) explicit and not forum appropriate, so I will not translate it here, and just say that it is the passive form of a well known four letter word in English. So what he sings is "we're a ####ed up generation". But there's a word play here, since the word "metzuyan" ("מצוין") you mention, sounding almost the same, means "excellent", so you can also hear "we're an excellent generation" (making it quite difficult for someone to translate this song). The non-slang meaning of the word really means "armed", and the slang meaning is derived from something that every man is armed with. The word is quite rarely used in the media nowadays because of the connotations of its slang use. It was used more in the distant past (fifty years and more) and some things that were written in the media and public documents back then sound very funny today.