なんといって meaning in this sentence

Question

我儘で思い出したからちょっと吾輩の家の主人がこの我儘で失敗した話をしよう。元来この主人は何といって人に勝れて出来る事もないが、何にでもよく手を出したがる。(吾輩は猫である)

The approximate meaning of the sentence is

To start with, although the shujin is unable to surpass others, he often seems to want to try his hand at anything and everything.

I may be a little wrong about てを出す but I'm not so worried about that part.

何といって is a little more challenging.

I can find

• といっても -> having said that, [some contradiction]
• といって -> because, however, as
• なんといっても -> after all is said and done, whatever is said.

from the context, it feels like it could be

• "the reason is that..."
• "whatever he says [the reality is the following]
• "no matter who" (but maybe that should なんと言う)
• "whats to say, even [disparaging remark]"

I shouldn't get so hung up on something that doesn't affect the meaning of the sentence much, but it's one of these simple phrases that is more than the sum of its parts and might help me expand my understanding of 何 and 言う. I think in this case it gets a little hard to know who is いって the person, the shujin, or wagahaineko if I don't have the set meaning of the phrase.

Answer 1

This 何といって is an outdated way of saying これといって ("(not) in particular"). It's used with some sort of negation.

この主人は何といって人に勝れて出来る事もないが、……
= この主人はこれといって人に勝れて出来る事もないが、……

There is nothing this master can do better than others in particular...

なんということはない ("There is nothing wrong in particular"; "Not particularly difficult") is still commonly used as a set phrase, but なんといって(～ない) is fairly uncommon today. Lastly, this has nothing to do with なんといっても/なんてったって/なんたって, which is much more common.