You're Giving Me...(Strange Translations)
Created | Updated Mar 23, 2002
Every now and then, life throws us a scrap of trivia which is oddly pleasing, in a skewed, through-the-looking-glass sort of way. One such example was my chance discovery, as a teenager, that the literal translation of the Swedish word for "tortoise" (Sköldpadda) is "shield-frog".
This tiny scrap of perfectly pointless information lay dormant in my long-term memory for many years and resurfaced only as I pondered what to write in my H2G2 home page. I don't know why, but it seemed curiously at home there, so in it went, apropos nothing in particular.
It was soon chanced upon by the Duke of Dunstable (a real-life Swede, complete with blond moustache), and a collaboration was born. For your delectation, Olaf and Duke are proud to present the first ten entries in what we hope will become a unique guide to words with a pleasing, if curious, literal English translation.
Did you know, for example, that the Swedish word for "deer" (Rådjur) translates into "raw animal", or that a beetle (Skalbagge) becomes "shell ram"? And what are we to make of "oak-slap" (Ekorre)? Actually it's a squirrel, but so much more descriptive, don't you think? You can almost hear their little furry bodies colliding with the bark.
Bearing in mind the nondescript nature of the pigeon, how satisfying it is to discover that "Duva" becomes "you what?" (the question mark is mine; it just seems to belong there somehow). Birds, in general, fare little better: "fågel" means "get-jello". A bit obscure that, chaps.
"Myrslok" (the aardvark) means "ant-hanger" or possibly "ant-bum", more fun altogether than the somewhat prosaic English version, "ant-eater", whilst "Noshörning" means "nose-corner" and "Kindpåsråtta" is "cheek-bag-rat": full marks if you figured those to be "rhino" and "gopher", respectively.
Finally, if your computer failed, you might be quite glad to receive a visit from the "boot-guru", but less so, I suspect, if he turned out to be Skippy the Bush "Känguru" ("It's my BIOS, Skip, it's broken! Go and fetch help!").
So there you have it. Ten perfectly pointless scraps of information, possibly, but after several beers they become hard currency at parties. At the very least they will hang around the nether regions of your brain like ants around an aardvark's bum, waiting to resurface when you least expect them.
Olaf and Duke would like to invite further contributions from H2G2 researchers around the world. Let's create a definitive guide to linguistic trivia!
This tiny scrap of perfectly pointless information lay dormant in my long-term memory for many years and resurfaced only as I pondered what to write in my H2G2 home page. I don't know why, but it seemed curiously at home there, so in it went, apropos nothing in particular.
It was soon chanced upon by the Duke of Dunstable (a real-life Swede, complete with blond moustache), and a collaboration was born. For your delectation, Olaf and Duke are proud to present the first ten entries in what we hope will become a unique guide to words with a pleasing, if curious, literal English translation.
Did you know, for example, that the Swedish word for "deer" (Rådjur) translates into "raw animal", or that a beetle (Skalbagge) becomes "shell ram"? And what are we to make of "oak-slap" (Ekorre)? Actually it's a squirrel, but so much more descriptive, don't you think? You can almost hear their little furry bodies colliding with the bark.
Bearing in mind the nondescript nature of the pigeon, how satisfying it is to discover that "Duva" becomes "you what?" (the question mark is mine; it just seems to belong there somehow). Birds, in general, fare little better: "fågel" means "get-jello". A bit obscure that, chaps.
"Myrslok" (the aardvark) means "ant-hanger" or possibly "ant-bum", more fun altogether than the somewhat prosaic English version, "ant-eater", whilst "Noshörning" means "nose-corner" and "Kindpåsråtta" is "cheek-bag-rat": full marks if you figured those to be "rhino" and "gopher", respectively.
Finally, if your computer failed, you might be quite glad to receive a visit from the "boot-guru", but less so, I suspect, if he turned out to be Skippy the Bush "Känguru" ("It's my BIOS, Skip, it's broken! Go and fetch help!").
So there you have it. Ten perfectly pointless scraps of information, possibly, but after several beers they become hard currency at parties. At the very least they will hang around the nether regions of your brain like ants around an aardvark's bum, waiting to resurface when you least expect them.
Olaf and Duke would like to invite further contributions from H2G2 researchers around the world. Let's create a definitive guide to linguistic trivia!
