{"id":396,"date":"2012-02-23T15:11:25","date_gmt":"2012-02-23T15:11:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/?p=396"},"modified":"2012-02-28T20:50:49","modified_gmt":"2012-02-28T20:50:49","slug":"swearing-in-danish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/2012\/02\/23\/swearing-in-danish\/","title":{"rendered":"Swearing in Danish"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/30\/2012\/02\/500px-Face-devil-grin.png\" aria-label=\"500px Face Devil Grin 300x300\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-397\"  alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" \/ src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/30\/2012\/02\/500px-Face-devil-grin-300x300.png\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #993300;\"><em>Once upon a time there were three travellers: a Swede, a Norwegian and a Dane. Having walked for days, they arrived at a magical swimming pool. There was no water in it, but the owner of the pool told them to state a wish when they jumped from the springboard. They would then splash right down in the objects of their desire. \u2013 Women! shouted the Swede, ran across the springboard and landed in the hot embrace of the most beautiful, naked ladies. While the Norwegian was standing on the board, though, he felt hungry after the long walk. \u2013 Food! he said, and jumped into a sea of the most delicious dishes. All the while the Dane had been standing at the edge of the pool, shaking his head at his foolish Scandinavian brethren. How could they be wasting their chance to get rich and famous like that! Well, he could do better. Solemnly, he stepped onto the board, clearing his throat for the great words he was about to utter. Alas! A leftover from the Norwegian\u2019s buffet, an innocent banana skin, had located itself just in front of the Dane\u2019s lifted right foot. \u2013 Sh*t! He exclaimed, and landed in a pool full of muck.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p>I don\u2019t remember who told me this joke (I guess it was a Norwegian or Swede rather than a Dane!) But I think it says a lot about Danes and swearing:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A lot of Danes have a lighthearted attitude to swearing. Those Danes like to swear now and then, but in a rather mild and joking way. (You must go to other countries to experience wild curse battles in the street!)<\/li>\n<li>In Danish, we\u2019ve taken some swearwords from English. (<strong>Sh*t!<\/strong>\u00a0is in the original, Non-English version of the joke!)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Traditionally, there have been <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">two groups<\/span> of Danish swearwords, of which the largest remains the<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Religious swearwords<\/h2>\n<p>When a hammer hits the nail of your thumb rather than that nail you were holding between your fingers an instant ago, the most basic thing to yell out would be<\/p>\n<p><strong>Av!<\/strong> [rhymes with \u2019now!\u2019] \u00a0 \u00a0<em>Ouch!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>If you feel really angry, you might scream<\/p>\n<p><strong>Av for fanden!<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u201dOuch for the Devil!\u201d (neutral oath)<\/p>\n<p>or<\/p>\n<p><strong>Av for Satan!<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0\u201dOuch for Satan!\u201d (stronger oath)<\/p>\n<p>or, if you\u2019re a polite kind of person,<\/p>\n<p><strong>Av for s\u00f8ren!\/Av for katten! \u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong>\u201dOuch for <em>s\u00f8ren<\/em>!\u201d\/\u201dOuch for the cat!\u201d (mild oaths)<\/p>\n<p>In the last two examples, the bad word has been replaced by something more innocent \u2013 a cat and a word which doesn\u2019t really mean anything (but sounds a lot like the name of the philosopher<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/S%C3%B8ren_Kierkegaard\"> S\u00f8ren Kierkegaard<\/a>!) Anyway, they are just stand-ins (or <em>euphemisms<\/em>) for the real name of the\u00a0Bible\u2019s Bad Guy. The Horned One appears in a lot of settings, often with a genitival <strong>-s<\/strong> ending (like the English &#8211;<em>\u2019s<\/em> in <em>Billie\u2019s<\/em>):<\/p>\n<p><strong>Hun er en fandens god danser!<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<em>She\u2019s a f*ing brilliant dancer!<\/em> (literally: \u201dDevil\u2019s good\u201d)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Din satans nar! \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><em>You bl*dy fool! \u00a0<\/em>(This one is very strong. Don\u2019t go around saying things like that in Copenhagen!)<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">A strange thing about Danish is that accusations of the\u00a0<em>You fool! <\/em>kind\u00a0are actually made with the word for \u201dyour\u201d! So <em>You idiot<\/em>! would be <strong>Din idiot!<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 literally \u201dYour idiot!\u201d That also goes for positive comments: <strong>Din fr\u00e6kke pige!<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0 <em>You rude girl!\u00a0<\/em>(Literally: \u201dYour rude girl!\u201d)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Some \u201dDevilish\u201d swearwords have the ending <strong>-me<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Nu holder du fandeme op!<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0<em>Now you f*ing stop!<\/em> (Literally: <em>Now you \u201dd*mned\u201d stop!<\/em>)<br \/>\n<strong>Jeg er s\u00f8reme glad for at jeg m\u00f8dte dig!<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0<em>I\u2019m indeed happy to have met you!<\/em> (This is a very mild oath indeed!)<\/p>\n<p>This ending is short for <strong>mig<\/strong>, <em>me<\/em>. All the <strong>-me<\/strong> words originate in short phrases with the structure \u201dMay the Devil do this or that to me!\u201d A fun example is <strong>denondelyneme!<\/strong>, which comes from <strong>den onde lyne mig!<\/strong> (May the Evil One hit me with lightnings!)<\/p>\n<p>God seems to be present in only one Danish exclamation: <strong>sgu<\/strong>.<br \/>\nIt comes from <strong>s\u00e5 Gud<\/strong> (so God), but has lost a lot of power. It can be translated as \u2019indeed\u2019 or \u2019actually\u2019:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Han er sgu meget flink.<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0 <em>He\u2019s actually quite nice. \/ He\u2019s indeed a nice guy.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Toilet swearwords<\/h2>\n<p>Some foreigners may be startled by the amount of \u201dtoilet words\u201d flying out of (some!) Danish mouths, but don\u2019t worry: It\u2019s mostly a way of stressing things, and rarely means anything offensive.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Hun var pisse sur.<\/strong>\u00a0 \u00a0<em>She was f@ing mad.<\/em> (Literally \u201dmad like p*ss\u201d).<br \/>\n<strong>Han var skide ligeglad.<\/strong> <em>He was totally indifferent<\/em>. (Literally \u201dindifferent like cr*p\u201d.)<\/p>\n<p>In this context, you may also note the word <strong>r\u00f8v<\/strong>, which is used in a lot of contexts for that body part which can be really hard to get out of a sofa! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p>And if you\u2019ve spent all the evening writing that love letter on your computer, and there is a power outage and you discover you forgot to save the document, you might just want to scream<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lort!<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0<em>Cr@p!<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">The F word<\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Sexual swearwords are rare in Danish. <span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\">(And mentioning those that do exist would be a little bit over the top for a decent, well-mannered blog like this one!)<\/span> But I have to mention the English \u201dF word\u201d\u2026 This vulgar creature has crept into Danish from American films. It has indeed become a part of everyday slang \u2013 especially among people younger than 40. Please keep in mind, though, that the F word \u2013 in its base form or with an <em>-ing<\/em> ending \u2013 is very much weaker in Danish than it originally is in English (after all, Danish lacks the English F verb!) When a young Dane sighs <strong>F*k, hvor er jeg tr\u00e6t!<\/strong>, it means little more than <em>God, I\u2019m tired!\u00a0<\/em>English-speakers may blush, but for a Dane the F word has basically been reduced to a powerful piece of sound, much like saying<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u00d8v!<\/strong> [rhymes with British <em>though<\/em>] \u00a0 \u00a0<em>D*mn!\/Ouch!<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff00ff;\"><em>Have you picked up some juicy Danish lingo? Please share it with the other readers by adding a comment! Comments won\u2019t be censored\u2026<\/em><\/span> \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<img width=\"350\" height=\"350\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/30\/2012\/02\/500px-Face-devil-grin-350x350.png\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image tmp-hide-img\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/30\/2012\/02\/500px-Face-devil-grin-350x350.png 350w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/30\/2012\/02\/500px-Face-devil-grin-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/30\/2012\/02\/500px-Face-devil-grin.png 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><p>Once upon a time there were three travellers: a Swede, a Norwegian and a Dane. Having walked for days, they arrived at a magical swimming pool. There was no water in it, but the owner of the pool told them to state a wish when they jumped from the springboard. They would then splash right&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/2012\/02\/23\/swearing-in-danish\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":397,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-396","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vocabulary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":400,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396\/revisions\/400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}