Photo by Alþingi Art BicnickThe Grapevine’s guide to sounding Icelandic, one word at a timeThe Icelandic word málþóf has been on everybody’s lips these past months. The Icelandic word for filibuster is málþóf. While the English term derives from the Dutch vrijbuiter meaning freebooter, or looter, the Icelandic term has a very different meaning. So in a sense, málþóf is the act of working an issue back and forth, without adding anything to the issue, just endlessly going back and forth on it, essentially attempting to talk the issue to death, without resolving it, or getting to a conclusion. It has not been looked at favourably in the democratic tradition of the Nordic countries, including Iceland, where filibusters seldom happen.