h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi there!

>the literal translation of the Swedish word for "tortoise" (Sköldpadda) is "shield-frog".

Hehe, the dutch name for "tortoise" (Schildpad) is also translated to "shield-frog", and I'm not kidding you.

The dutch word for a "hang-over" (Kater) is the same as for a tom-cat.

I'll inform you of any other strange things, when think of them.

The danish word for hang-overs is "tømmermænd", which means carpenters (strange, but true).
If you're drunk, youre "fuld", "full" in english.
To vomit in danish is "at brække sig", which means "to break yourself".
The danish word of fighting, "slås", can also mean "to be hit", depending on how you pronounce it.

-By the way, we've got shield-frogs in Denmark, too. We call them "skildpadder".

Hey Bistroist!

About the drunk stuff: I'd advise you to go get your Danish ass (no offence) over to http://www.h2g2.com/A169256 and submit these Danish terms for being drunk there. Ginger The Feisty is there making a list of "International Terms for Being Drunk". Any slang in any language is welcome, and explanations of the really weird terms is also appreciated (When you notice that the list for Holland is the second-longest there... well, I seem to be responsible for a lot of them )

I could kill you with a list of dutch terms for vomiting, however, most of these terms can't be translated any other way than just as "puking" or "vomiting". One term, though, literally means "going over ones neck" (in dutch "over de nek gaan").

It seems as though shield-frogs (or -toads) are more common than anyone might have believed

Some more interesting ones:
Mushrooms are "paddestoelen" in dutch. It literally translates as "toad-stools" or "frog-chairs".

Someone who gets violently mad is called "gifkikker" - literally "venom-frog".

A toxedo is sometimes referred to as "ape-pakkie" (monkey-suit).

Oh, I seem to keep going on... don't I *ever* shut up?

Toadstools and monkeysuits are also fairly common usage in English - although I wouldn't recommend you get mushrooms and toadstools mixed up too often.

Yeah, I know, not all mushrooms are toad-stools in english, but in dutch they are.

Actually, no mushrooms are toadstools. Mushrooms are the edible ones, toadstools are poisonous.

3

Of course if you think of stools in the other English sense, then toadstools become even less savoury.

Mushrooms, eh? Paddehatte in danish, meaning (you guessed it) toadhats. An other word is svampe, which also means sponge. -Go figure!

And here is what a lot of different countries call the @ symbol

The Germans call it klammeraffe, (spider monkey), the Dutch, apestaartje (monkey's tail), Danes and Norwegians refer to it as grisehale (pig's tail) or snabel ("with an elephant's trunk"). Finnish people call it kissanhanta (cat's tail), which sometimes goes one step further to become miukumauku - the meow sign! Hungarians see it as the worm or maggot (kukac) and the Thai word translates as "the wiggling worm-like character". Czechs call it zavinac, which is a rollmop herring, and the Hebrew term is strudel, the famous Viennese apple pastry. Swedes use kanelbulle (cinnamon bun), while the French go with escargot which translates as (snail) fairly frequently used around the world.

A pity there isn't an interesting word for it in English

What DO you call a @ in English, by the way?

A small note: In Danish we don't just call it a "snabel", it's a "snabel-a". Did you say grisehale was Norwegian? Never heard of it in Danish, that's for sure.

In English it is called "The At Symbol"

Pathetic isn't it.

Or "at" for short.
As in SETI@home meaning SETI-AT-home, or my email-address being [email protected], which means whatever-you-like-AT-fessie.cjb.net.

Indeed, little inspired, but on the other hand VERY descriptive!

Or "at" for short.
As in SETI@home meaning SETI-AT-home, or my email-address being [email protected], which means whatever-you-like-AT-fessie.cjb.net.

Indeed, little inspired, but on the other hand VERY descriptive!

Just to be nitpicky and abusive all at once:
The @ is correctly called snabel-a in Danish, very crudely translating into 'trunk-a' (trunk like the long thingy in the face of an elephant) but some people refer to it as 'hundelort' due to its appearance on screen, where, if good will is applied, it does resemble a 'hundelort'.
And what does then 'hundelort' translate into? Well, it's the Danish term for the solid substance left by doggies on the streets...
And, being a Dane, using the term 'svamp' for frog-chairs, I always found the English term 'swamp' entertaining. Strange, huh?

I can see the similarity between an @ and the doggy-doo
"Svamp" sounds like the dutch word "Zwam" which is alternatively used for the "frog-chairs" I can see how that makes "swamp" an entertaining word.

Confusing that...
Right! Everybody under age - get lost for the next few lines.
You know the kinds of idols used to symbollise trains, busstops, pedestrians-crossing and so forth? I had the shame of discovering that this word in Danish is 'piktogram'. Directly (!) translated back, this means 'dick-train-hit'. Why this is, I don't know. How it is done, I also don't know.
Confusing that too...

Hahaha, I get it! pik-tog-ram!

"Pik" and "ram" are also known in dutch, and they also could be translated as "dick" and "hit", but for "tog" we'll have to go out of our way a little... It reminds me of the german word "Zug" (pronounce "tzoog") for train.

But piktogram is used in several languagesm and also in dutch. The windows-icons are "piktogrammen", for example.

If you split piktogram up a little different than KimotoCat did, (pik-to-gram instead of pik-tog-ram) you get an other meaning that I am all to young and innocent to explain here.

You didn't read correctly: KimotoCat did NOT split piktogram up

Backing up the forum a bit, I will look differently at my friends Great Dane dog now