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Discussion: How do I properly say two different Icelandic phrases/sayings?

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How do I properly say two different Icelandic phrases/sayings?
A long time ago I used to live in Iceland as a guest worker in both Vestmannajar and Reykjavik in the fishing industry. There were two phrases I liked quite a lot that I wish now I had learned how to properly say them in Icelandic.

The first basically translated to something like; "it's best to get the ugly things done first". (when we would start a difficult job that involved multiple things--start with the most unsavory thing first)

The next was when describing corruption in a organization; it translated to "a fish rots from the head down".

If there is any link to additional sayings like those above, I would really love to see those as well. Thanks in advance to any Icelander who has a chance to think about this.

Cheers.

Language pair: Icelandic; English

Dan
July 7, 2020

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