Re: OT: Norwegian Phrases

On Tuesday 30 October 2001 05:40, Doug Ball wrote:
> One phrase equivalent to the English "I'll hit you on the nose till the
> blood spurts" is pronounced by my family something like [E sk@ slA du pA
> nAsIn tIl blVd sp@rt@] which I'm guessing should be something like "Eg skal
> slå deg på nasen til blod spurter" in Norwegian (I am assuming my ancestors
> spoke something more like Nynorsk rather than Bokmål). What should this be
> in present-day Norwegian?
Well, it would be something like "Eg skal slå deg på nasen til blodet
sprutar" in Nynorsk, though the dialect spoken near Trondheim is quite
different. As for changes, the pronunciation you give has definitely
changed from the Norwegian, not very surprisingly, and the last word
has mutated, perhaps under influence from English "spurt"? There also
is no definite article on "blod", though that might just be a
dialectal difference. It seems like a pretty weird phrase to remember,
though - it's definitely not an expression I've heard before, but then
again I'm from a different part of the country.

> The other phrases is similar to "This Little Piggy Went to Market"--a
> children's game used on toes.
> You grab the littlest toe, say [lIS tO@], then move towards the big toe
> saying, [dOitIl@, tIl@lus@, umflu@], and then you jiggle the big toe saying
> [stO skrVbIn].  How off is this for the Norwegian? (Sorry about the word
> boundaries, I can only guess where they are) Is this game even still used
> in Norway, or is it some relic of the 19th century?
Hmm, the last bit on the first one is probably "tåa", "the toe", and
the first bit on the last one might be "stor", "big", but
unfortunately I have to admit I've no idea what the rest is supposed
to be :-)

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Rune Haugseng