Breakdown of Einhver þjónn kom vappandi og missti rjómatertuna.
og
and
koma
to come
einhver
someone / some / any (before a noun)
þjónninn
the waiter
missa
to lose, to drop
rjómatertan
the cream pie
vappa
to waddle
Questions & Answers about Einhver þjónn kom vappandi og missti rjómatertuna.
How does the "koma + present participle" construction work in kom vappandi? Does the participle change if the subject is plural?
In Icelandic, you can express the manner of motion by using verbs like koma (to come) or fara (to go) followed by the present participle of a motion verb, just like in English ("came waddling"). The present participle (ending in -andi) is indeclinable here, meaning it never changes form, regardless of whether the subject is masculine, feminine, singular, or plural.
Doesn't missa usually mean "to miss"? Why is it translated as "dropped" here?
Missa is a classic false friend! While it looks like the English word "miss", it actually means "to lose" or "to drop" a physical object. If you want to say "to miss" a bus, you would use missa af, and for missing a person emotionally, you would use sakna. Here, missti is the simple past tense form meaning "dropped".
Why use einhver for "some" here instead of nokkur?
Einhver is used to mean "some" or "a certain" when referring to an unspecified but existing person or thing (like "some waiter"). Nokkur is typically used in questions (meaning "any"), negative sentences, or to mean "several" when plural. Since this is an affirmative statement about one unspecified waiter, einhver is the only correct choice.
Why is the object in the form rjómatertuna instead of rjómatertan?
The verb missa governs the accusative case. The noun is rjómaterta (a compound of rjómi meaning cream and terta meaning pie or cake), which is feminine. In the accusative singular, it becomes rjómatertu, and when you attach the definite article suffix for the accusative feminine (-na), it becomes rjómatertuna (the cream pie).
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