Proverb Analysis: Það er ekki á vísan að róa

Some proverbs are transparent windows; others are sealed boxes. Það er ekki á vísan að róa — "nothing is guaranteed," literally something like "it is not toward a sure thing to row" — is a sealed box, and that is exactly what makes it worth opening. Most Icelanders use it fluently without being able to parse it: the words á vísan and the rowing have fused into a single idiom whose internal grammar has gone dark. Yet inside the box sit two of the most interesting structures in the language — the expletive (dummy) subject það and a bare-infinitive complement governed by a fossilised preposition — preserved precisely because the phrase froze. This page does what an idiom list cannot: it takes the construction apart, clause by clause, and shows the old grammar still ticking under the surface. (For the idiom's meaning and use among other nature-and-sea sayings, see expressions/idioms-nature; this page is the grammatical autopsy, not the usage gloss.)

The proverb

The everyday meaning is "there's no sure thing here," "you can't count on it," "nothing is guaranteed." You say it when an outcome is genuinely up in the air — applying for a job with many applicants, trusting a weather forecast, hoping a deal goes through. Now take it apart.

Word by word

The literal reading, in Icelandic order, is "It is not toward-a-sure-thing to row" — i.e. "rowing here is not [rowing] toward a guaranteed outcome." Four pieces of grammar carry it.

1. The expletive það: a subject that means nothing

The proverb opens with það, and this is not the contentful það "that/it" you meet pointing at things. It is the expletive (or dummy / placeholder) það — a pronoun inserted purely to fill the subject position so the clause has something in first place, even though there is no real subject to talk about. Icelandic, being a strict verb-second language, needs something in the slot before the finite verb in a declarative; when the sentence is genuinely subjectless — a comment on a situation rather than a statement about a thing — the dummy það steps in. English does the same with the empty "it" of it is raining, it is hard to say, it seems that…: that "it" refers to nothing; it is just holding the subject slot. (The full behaviour of expletive það — including how it disappears under inversion — is on syntax/dummy-thad.)

The proof that this það is a placeholder, not a referent, is what happens when you front something else. Because the dummy það exists only to occupy first position, the moment another element takes first position, það vanishes — V2 is satisfied without it:

An English speaker's first instinct — to read það as "that" pointing back at something — is the central parsing error of the whole proverb. There is nothing for it to point at. It is grammatical scaffolding.

2. á vísan: a frozen preposition + the directional accusative

The heart of the idiom — and the part that has gone most opaque — is á vísan. Two things are frozen here.

First, the case. The preposition á ("on, at, onto, toward") is one of the Icelandic prepositions that takes either the dative or the accusative, and the choice carries meaning: á + dative = location ("on, at"), á + accusative = direction/goal ("onto, toward"). Here it is accusative — á vísan, not \á vísum — and the accusative is doing real semantic work: it marks *motion toward a goal. You are rowing toward a destination, an outcome — and the proverb denies that the destination is a "sure thing." The directional accusative is the same case you use in fara á fund ("go to a meeting"), róa á miðin ("row out to the fishing grounds"). (Two-case prepositions and the location-vs-direction split: verbs/case-assignment.)

Second, vísan is an adjective used as a noun. Vís means "certain, sure," and here its accusative singular masculine form vísan is substantivised — used on its own as "a sure thing, a certainty," with no noun behind it (understand "a sure [outcome / catch]"). Adjectives substantivise freely in Icelandic, but this one has frozen so hard that speakers no longer feel the adjective inside it; á vísan is now learned as an unanalysable chunk. That is why the most common modern error is to "fix" the case to dative \á vísum — the link between *vísan and the directional accusative has been lost.

3. að róa: the bare-infinitive complement and the impersonal frame

The last piece is að róa — að ("to") + the infinitive róa ("to row"). It is the logical subject of the whole evaluation: the thing being judged "not toward a sure thing" is the rowing. Structurally this is an impersonal / extraposed construction: the real content (the infinitive að róa) sits at the end, while the dummy það holds the front slot — exactly the shape of Það er erfitt að segja ("it is hard to say") or Það er gott að vera kominn heim ("it's good to be home"). The infinitive að róa is what það anticipates; you could paraphrase, awkwardly, as "Að róa [hér] er ekki á vísan" — "rowing [here] is not toward a sure thing." The proverb simply keeps the natural, extraposed order with the dummy in front.

Note the bare infinitive róa after að: no finite verb, no subject of its own. The action of rowing is presented abstractly, as a type of activity being evaluated for certainty — which is precisely why the proverb generalises so well beyond boats. (The extraposition pattern — dummy það anticipating an infinitive or clause — is detailed on syntax/dummy-thad.)

4. The lost image: rowing toward an uncertain catch

Now the fossilised imagery. The picture is the fisherman setting out: he rows out (róa) toward the fishing grounds, but the sea makes no promises — he may come home with a full boat or with nothing. Að róa "to row" was, for a thousand years, near-synonymous with "to go fishing" (róa til fiskjar, fara í róður "go on a fishing trip"). So the proverb's literal claim — "the rowing is not toward a sure thing" — meant, concretely, "going out to fish guarantees you no catch." From that physical uncertainty the language drew a law about all uncertain ventures. The reason the proverb is opaque today is that this fishing sense of róa has receded from daily life; modern speakers feel the meaning ("nothing's guaranteed") but no longer see the boat. Recovering the image is what makes the grammar make sense: the directional accusative (á vísan "toward a sure thing") is literal seafaring — you are rowing toward a goal — and only became metaphorical once the fishing context faded. (The maritime idiom family: expressions/idioms-nature.)

Common Mistakes

The opening það is grammatical scaffolding, not a pointer. Reading it as "that" sends you hunting for a referent that does not exist.

The accusative vísan is not arbitrary: á + accusative marks direction. The phrase is frozen as á vísan; reshaping it to dative á vísum both breaks the idiom and erases the directional logic.

Beware the homograph: vísan here is "a sure thing" (from vís "certain"), not vísan "the verse" (vísa + article). Context — á + accusative — fixes it.

Key Takeaways

• Það er ekki á vísan að róa = "nothing is guaranteed" (literally "it is not toward a sure thing to row") — a frozen fishing proverb whose grammar survives precisely because the phrase fossilised.
• Það is the expletive (dummy) subject — a meaningless placeholder filling the V2 first slot (like English empty "it"); front another phrase and it vanishes (Í þessum bransa er ekki á vísan að róa).
• á vísan = á
  • the directional accusative: á
    • accusative marks motion toward a goal, and vísan is the substantivised accusative of vís ("certain") = "a sure thing." The fixed form is á vísan, never \á vísum*.
• að róa is a bare infinitive in an extraposed/impersonal frame — Það er [predicate] að [infinitive] — the same shape as Það er erfitt að segja ("it's hard to say").
• The lost image is the fisherman rowing out with no promise of a catch (róa = "go fishing"); recovering it explains the directional accusative and the meaning at once. This page is the grammatical autopsy; for usage among other sea idioms see expressions/idioms-nature.