Re: They Have a Word for It!

Yoon Ha Lee wrote:

>_They Have a Word for It: A Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslatable Words &
>Phrases_ by Howard Rheingold.
>
>Anyone else read this?  It's not conlanging per se, and by "untranslatable"
>he seems to mean "untranslatable in a single word."
Hehe. I just read the following at the Swedish humor site
"Yttermera". I copied it into this mail for your convenience:

http://www.yttermera.se/reshosta/theswedishway/a_touch_of_sweden.html

Lagom – Not too much and not too little. Yes, you
know the idea, but you don't have one little word for
it.

Hotdog with shrimpsalad – Meat and seafood at
the same time.

Swedish weapon industry – Bofors sell weapons
to any country as long as they promise not to use
them.

Ombudsman – A man or a woman appointed by
the government to protect the people against the
government.

Mr and Mrs Svensson – Volvo, two children and a
dog.

Klämdag – An excuse not to work. It means if one
or two days are squeezed in between holidays, they
are klämdagar, squeeze-days, and why should we
work on those days when we don't work on the
holidays surrounding them.

Kask – 50 percent coffee and 50 percent vodka.
Coffeebreak and party at the same time

Allemansrätt – The "all mans right" Gives everyone
in Sweden freedom to walk around on everyones
properties. As long as you dont walk into a "Militärt
skyddsområde" which means Military Protected
Area of course.

Industrisemester – July is not a good choice if you
want to visit Sweden in business. Sweden is
closed for vacation. But come back in August and
we'll help you again.

Radhus – A swedish semidetached house is as
near as lagom you can come in real estate in
Sweden.

||| daniel


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