Breakdown of De gewiste video was gelukkig niet belangrijk.
zijn
to be
niet
not
belangrijk
important
gelukkig
fortunately
wissen
to erase, to delete
de video
the video
Questions & Answers about De gewiste video was gelukkig niet belangrijk.
The verb is wissen (with a double 's'). Why does the attributive past participle gewiste only have one 's'?
The past participle of wissen is gewist. When we use it as an adjective before a noun, we add an -e to get gewiste. We do not write gewisste because Dutch spelling rules state you do not need a double consonant to keep a vowel short if it is already followed by two different consonants (here, 's' and 't'). The syllable break is ge-wis-te, so the 'i' sits safely in a closed syllable and stays short.
Why doesn't the adjective belangrijk get an -e ending here?
Adjectives only get the -e ending when they are used attributively (placed directly in front of the noun they modify, just like de gewiste video). Here, belangrijk is used predicatively (it comes after the verb was to describe the subject), so it remains uninflected.
Why is niet placed after gelukkig instead of before it?
Gelukkig (fortunately) is a sentence adverb, meaning it expresses an opinion about the entire situation rather than just modifying one word. Sentence adverbs generally appear early in the sentence. The negation niet needs to be placed close to the specific element it negates. Here, it specifically negates the adjective belangrijk, so it goes directly in front of it.
I usually see verwijderen used for deleting files. Is wissen exactly the same?
They are very similar but have a slight difference in nuance. Wissen comes from the physical action of erasing or wiping something clean (like a whiteboard or a cassette tape), making it a great fit for wiping data and memories. Verwijderen literally means to remove or distance something, and is the standard translation on most software 'delete' buttons. Both sound perfectly natural when talking about a video.
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