ما مشي الحال

One of the advantages of being multi-lingual multi-dialect is that one is rarely stuck for a word to express oneself and one's feelings.. I find Arabic a highly flowery/pretentious/heavy language at times so I avoid it when expressing myself in writing, I feel fake sometimes if I do. English is analytical, like me and my thinking, it is clear and direct. The first thing they taught me in my American liberal arts education is to forget what I had learned at school in writing. It is about quality not quantity. MH later at work told me another simple rule; take every complicated difficult word and replace it with a simpler one, until you no longer can. Omit repetitions. Core ideas only.. pure, filtered, stripped raw.

Mapping and differences between languages and semantics amuses me a lot. In English, we say "I miss you", it is about me and about the feeling *I* am feeling. In French, however, it is about the other: "Tu me manques". It is YOU who is missing to me. There is a lack of "you", and "I" am just an indirect object here.

There is an expression used a lot in Lebanese (and Levantine) dialects.. "ما مشي الحال".. It means it did not work out, but it says it in a passive, resigned tone that doesn't let on the reason things did not work, whether it is you, others, or just fate.

So how is your new start-up?
ما مشي الحال

Weren't you getting engaged to that guy?
ما مشي الحال

How is that diet going?
ما مشي الحال

The French also have a similar expression when you ask someone how they're doing, "ça marche" they say. "Ca marche", "it goes", not great, not bad.. Just life as we know it.

So, ça marche, until one day it does not.