Thread: ruminated on ways and means

Hola a todos.
¿Cómo traduciríais "ways and means" en la frase siguiente?: He motioned me to sit down again, and he took a chair himself, looking with a perplexed expression at the depressing garden, with its two straight bordered walks and its strip of grass, terminating in a dreary-looking summer-house not much larger than a dog-kennel, where, doubtless, he smoked his pipe, and ruminated on ways and means after the youngsters were safely packed away in the sheets.
No le veo sentido a "meditaba sobre maneras y medios".
Gracias.

Hi Antonio
This is what I´ve found for ways and means, you wouldn´t translate this literally...

ways and means


ability, capability, capacity, course, funds, methods, procedure, reserves, resources, tools, way.

Hi Vicente
How you doing?

Yes, I quite agree with you. I would like to have the whole page or previous pages just to see what kind of "thought" might he refering too. I like your example, it fits pretty well as an explanation for this question. I can imagen the scene...
Depending on the text flow, you could say in Spanish: "me detuve a pensar en la vida", "me dispuse a meditar en lo que vendría", etc. like keeping it very vague...

Hola, vicente y analaura. Por si aclara un poco las cosas, el personaje que está meditando en este texto es un médico al que el protagonista de la novela va a hacerle unas preguntas sobre un antiguo paciente.

Hi guys
Well, Antonio, so may be that is what the doctor was ruminating about, but since it´s not mentioned in the English text, I wouldn´t over explain, since we might deduce what it is but we are not positive... So, I would leave it vague as the English version.
What about something like: "y se hundió en sus pensamientos"...
What do you think Vicente?

sí Vicente, me gusta esa opción también.