Breakdown of Hún hefði átt að vera skynsamleg og sleppa þessum óþarfa fundi.
vera
to be
og
and
hún
she
þessi
this (m/f)
fundurinn
the meeting
hafa
to have
eiga að
to be supposed to
sleppa
to let go, to escape / to avoid / get out of
skynsamlegur
sensible
óþarfur
unnecessary
Questions & Answers about Hún hefði átt að vera skynsamleg og sleppa þessum óþarfa fundi.
How does the construction hefði átt að literally break down to mean "should have"?
It combines hefði, the past subjunctive of hafa ("would have"), with átt, the past participle of eiga (which means "to have to" or "ought to" as a modal verb). Together with að and an infinitive, it literally translates to "would have had to", which is the standard Icelandic way to express an unfulfilled past obligation—something you "should have" done but didn't.
Both vera and sleppa are in the infinitive here. Does the hefði átt að apply to both?
Yes. The conjunction og (and) links the two actions, so they share the same auxiliary verb structure. The sentence means she should have been (vera) sensible and she should have skipped (sleppa) the meeting. You only need the single að before the first infinitive.
Why is þessum óþarfa fundi in the dative case?
It is triggered by the verb sleppa. While some verbs take the accusative, sleppa governs the dative case when it means "to skip", "to miss" (intentionally), or "to let go of". Here, she is skipping or letting go of the meeting (fundi).
Why does the adjective take the form óþarfa instead of the strong dative masculine óþörfum?
Because it immediately follows the demonstrative pronoun þessum (this). Words like "the", "this", or "that" trigger the weak declension in the following adjective. For a masculine dative singular noun like fundi, the weak adjective ending is simply -a, making it óþarfa.
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