I’ve been writing a lot these past few months about grammar – which doesn’t necessarily give cultural context to Icelandic as a living language. So today my Icelandic friend, Ingimar, has volunteered to help me to introduce you to a few Icelandic slang expressions, which he condensed into a nice short story for you.

Here are a few of his favorites, and the ones we used in his monologue:

Börri (M) – burger
Öllari (M) – a beer
Drull – e-m að vera drull – to not give a damn
Pappakassi (M) – idiot (literally, a cardboard box)
Að rífa sig – to shoot off your mouth, run your mouth
Fössari (M) – Friday (hence fös-)
Fáviti (M) – moron (there is also a hálfviti – half wit – this one is a “few-wit”)
Gaur (M)– dude
Hellaður – wasted, drunk
Klukkari (M)– an hour
Forritið (N)- twitter (The Program – ominous, eh?)
Þáverandi – my then-partner (fyrrverandi is “former”)
Nölli  (M)- nerd
Spaði (M) – player
Trefill (M) – hipster (Because of hipster scarves)
Prófljóta  – that lean and hungry look that one gets in the middle of finals.(Literally, “test-ugly)
Basically – basically/totally/pretty much

Here’s his genius composition:

Ég var í börra og öllara með þáverandi á fössara ekkert í gangi á forritinu, búnað [búin að] vera í svona klukkara, hún var í miðri prófljótu en ég er ekki pappakassi svo mér var drull. Þá kemur einhver fáviti og fér að rífa sig, kalla mig nölla og trefil og spila sig algjöran spaða. Ég var bara eitthvað, hvað er árið 2008, við erum hipsterar í dag. Klukkan að ganga sjö og gaurinn basically hellaður.

And his compelling reading of it:

Ingó Slang

Happy Friday!