ma9akht-haa

Some of my immediate circle are lovers of mil7. I don't just mean that they enjoy putting salt on every dish (that, too) but even when a meal resembles a Scandinavian winter with the amount of salt pilled on it, their hand will still reach for the little pot to add an extra flourish.

So an unamused-me will end up ironically saying:

taraa waayid ma9akht-haa ('by the way, you totally spoiled it / lit. made it bland or flavourless').

The above phrase is directed at a male (the verb would be ma9akhtay if speaking to a female). For the eagled-eyed among you who are wondering why the subject pronoun is the feminine haa, all shall be revealed: the haa refers to 'the situation' or al-7aalah which is a feminine word. However, in this context, the haa could just as easily be referring to another feminine word, al-wajbah (meaning 'the meal').

Enough grammar, let's get back to ma9akh-haa wa uhuwa kul-ah sahraan bi d-diiwaaniyah. Here's how the sentence works.

ma9akh is the verb, referring to the third person 'he' (so at this point, we're gossiping about a man). The haa pronoun again refers to the situation, al-7aalah because we're saying that he's kind of spoiling things in a general sense.

The next word wa means 'and' ... so I guess we've got more to say.

uhuwa ('he') kul-ah ('always') sahraan ('stays up late') bi ('at') ad-diiwaaniyah ('traditional Kuwaiti gatherings for men').

In other words, he's ruining everything by always staying out late with his friends. And as many a wife might conclude in despair: ana maqhuurah!

Arabic	Pronounced?	English
انا مقهور	ana maqhuur	I’m fed up (m)
انا مقهورة	ana maqhuurah	I’m fed up (f)
انا مقهورين	a7na maqhuuriin	We’re fed up (pl)
ملح	mil7	salt
بالديوانية	bi d-diiwaaniyah	at the traditional Kuwaiti gatherings for men