Breandán wrote:
Certainly "will wish it had" will come out very convoluted in Irish.
Perhaps someone might be able to look at Mick's translation and tell us if it does say what he intends? I read it as "He'd be better off if he would kill me". Though that could also double for the perfect tense "He would have been better off if he would have killed me." Would that be correct? That would probably work for the second half of the quote.
However, I think we are trying to make a play on a standard quote, so it might help to work off a "standard" translation (if one was ever settled upon in the old days?). This by Redwolf from a bygone era looks pretty neat:
An rud nach maraíonn mé, neartóidh sé mé
What doesn't kill me will make me stronger."
(Was this ever conclusively "confirmed or corrected" to anything else?)
Working from that, perhaps:
An rud nach maraíonn mé, beidh aiféala air.
"What doesn't kill me will regret it."
(or with Mick's version: An rud nach maraíonn mé, b'fhearr dó dá maródh sé mé.)
Await further comment ...
I don't think I came up with that one. It was the stock answer we gave for that particular request. It made it into the tattoo book, so it would have been pretty well-vetted (in addition to asking on the forum, Eoin had another native speaker go over all the offerings).
Redwolf
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