# Moose in Sweden are called Elk. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [November 10, 2004, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moose-in-sweden-are-called-elk/274003 "2004-11-10T12:24:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moose-in-sweden-are-called-elk/274003/1 "2004-11-10T12:24:20Z")
[Obligatory Link and it’s about Drunken Moosies](http://animal.discovery.com/news/afp/20041108/drunkmoose.html?ct=2614.7822204894) and you know you like stories about loaded moose. For years I could never figure out what a pole cat was that I was reading about in some UK magazines. I think I figured it out to be something like bobcats. Any other animals that are called one thing where you live and something else across the pond? ---
**Author:** ![Anastasaeon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/73ab20/32.png) [@Anastasaeon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anastasaeon)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moose-in-sweden-are-called-elk/274003/2 "2004-11-10T12:41:42Z")
Oh, man. I’m from Canada… soooo… Their moose are elk, but our moose are moose, and our elk are wapiti. Though we still call them elk. But our elk are not moose. It’s starting to sound like our unripened blueberries. “Those are blueberries. They’re only red because they’re green.” Oh, and a polecat is a skunk - at least it is where I’m from. _head explodes_ ---
**Author:** ![Jervoise](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d2c977/32.png) [@Jervoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jervoise)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moose-in-sweden-are-called-elk/274003/3 "2004-11-10T12:47:49Z")
In Australia, a Daddy Long-Legs is a lanky, harmless spider (harvestmen). In the UK, it means a big flying insect (crane fly). ---
**Author:** ![ShibbOleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@ShibbOleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShibbOleth)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moose-in-sweden-are-called-elk/274003/4 "2004-11-10T12:54:04Z")
A møøse once bit my sister. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moose-in-sweden-are-called-elk/274003/5 "2004-11-10T13:04:29Z")
So moose are mean and belligerent drunks, huh? Figures; the last time I was in a bar with a cervid who wasn’t stuffed and hanging over a fireplace, he told me that those big guys are actually insecure, and tend to drink over their problems. Upstate New York gets a lot of them every mating season, seeking out dairy cows because they can’t land a she-moose to mate with. [Polecats](http://sciences.univ-angers.fr/ecologie/Polecat_project.html), Shirley, are European mustelids, resembling a weasel or ferret. They can emit a foul odor when they feel menaced, which made early settlers transfer the name to the resident North American black-and-white odoriferous mustelid, i.e., the skunk. ---
**Author:** ![Capt\_B.Phart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc29f/32.png) [@Capt\_B.Phart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt_B.Phart)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moose-in-sweden-are-called-elk/274003/6 "2004-11-10T13:38:40Z")
> [@Anastasaeon](#): > > It’s starting to sound like our unripened blueberries. “Those are blueberries. They’re only red because they’re green.” That would be\*\* _Bilberry_ \*\*round these parts ---
**Author:** ![Tomcat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Tomcat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tomcat)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moose-in-sweden-are-called-elk/274003/7 "2004-11-10T14:21:04Z")
Czechs have this problem too (it is theirs cuz I said so). They have _Jelen_ here that look damn close to elk, but when you tell people that, they go “But they aren’t elk!!!” They also have deer here with moose-like antlers (shovels) and other problems. -Tcat ---
**Author:** ![The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a87d85/32.png) [@The\_King\_of\_Soup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_King_of_Soup)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moose-in-sweden-are-called-elk/274003/8 "2004-11-10T14:49:47Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > So moose are mean and belligerent drunks, huh? Where I grew up, in the Great State of Maine (a phrase now used only at political conventions), moose are either drunk all the time or are \*constantly \* mean and belligerent. I prefer the latter. My most vivid memory of childhood is being surprised that my mother (who never touched alcohol, but was and remains mean and belligerent to anything that threatens her or hers) actually managed by force of will, intensity of emotion, a straw broom, and sheer volume, to drive a moose massing at least twelve times her weight out of our garden. The sight of it kept me on the straight and narrow until I moved out on my own. ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moose-in-sweden-are-called-elk/274003/9 "2004-11-10T15:00:22Z")
Polecats are skunks. Huh. That just blows the picture in my mind. **King of Soup** I totally understand your mother’s fury. If a Moose got into my garden that I slaved over, I would attack with a broom or possibly a potato gun. However, since moosies are not exactly common in my part of Michigan ( only in the UP and Isle Royal.) I shant worry. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moose-in-sweden-are-called-elk/274003/10 "2004-11-10T15:01:04Z")
Drunken moose and belligerent elk are one thing, but a loaded Shriner is a hoot! ---
**Author:** ![Wile\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c37758/32.png) [@Wile\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wile_E)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moose-in-sweden-are-called-elk/274003/11 "2004-11-10T15:06:00Z")
Darn! Shib beat me to the obligatory MP reference. Hmm … _thinks_ I, for one, welcome our Drunken Moose overlords. Oh, I was always confused about the UK animals known as stoats. Are they weasels or badgers? Or sort of a weasely badger or a badgered weasel? Or something else entirely, like another skunk? ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moose-in-sweden-are-called-elk/274003/12 "2004-11-10T15:24:07Z")
Oooooh, I’ve never heard of a **stoat**. ---
**Author:** ![curly\_chick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ba0ec/32.png) [@curly\_chick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curly_chick)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moose-in-sweden-are-called-elk/274003/13 "2004-11-10T15:24:42Z")
> [@Wile E](#): > > Oh, I was always confused about the UK animals known as stoats. Are they weasels or badgers? Or sort of a weasely badger or a badgered weasel? Or something else entirely, like another skunk? Stoats look more like a weasel than they look like a badger. Then there are ferrets and mink, which are also stoaty things; elongated rat type creatures. Then there’s a pinemartin, which I always thought was a similar sort of a thing, but now I know better, they are a bit more squirrelly Why no, I’m not a professional in the arena of naming vermin, why do you ask? 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Capt\_B.Phart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc29f/32.png) [@Capt\_B.Phart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt_B.Phart)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moose-in-sweden-are-called-elk/274003/14 "2004-11-10T15:39:04Z")
> [@Wile E](#): > > Are they weasels or badgers? Or sort of a weasely badger or a badgered weasel? Or something else entirely, like another skunk? [passing small child] A weasel is weasily wecognised and a stoat is stoataly different! [/passing small child] ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moose-in-sweden-are-called-elk/274003/15 "2004-11-10T15:47:46Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > So moose are mean and belligerent drunks, huh? Plus, if you don’t watch out, they’ll drop ping-pong balls on your head. ---
**Author:** ![Ichbin\_Dubist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/51bf81/32.png) [@Ichbin\_Dubist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ichbin_Dubist)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moose-in-sweden-are-called-elk/274003/16 "2004-11-10T16:44:20Z")
**Chocolate mousse in Sweden is called "elkke."** This isn’t true, but someone can now use this post as a cite backing this up if they want. If they cut out this last part. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moose-in-sweden-are-called-elk/274003/17 "2004-11-10T17:19:22Z")
My friend’s parents once totalled a '69 Mercedes against a møøse. ---
**Author:** ![Mehitabel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mehitabel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mehitabel)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moose-in-sweden-are-called-elk/274003/18 "2004-11-10T18:08:27Z")
“Oi’m raisin’ polecats fer peace!!” But Europe doesn’t have raccoons, or chipmunks, right? I remember one Scottish roommate of mine trying to get me to explain the strange creature she’d seen by the lake–mutant brown baby squirrel or what? ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moose-in-sweden-are-called-elk/274003/19 "2004-11-10T18:38:41Z")
> [@Shirley Ujest](#): > > Polecats are skunks. Huh. That just blows the picture in my mind. No, I’m sorry I misled you. Polecats, in Europe, are more or less ferrets in bad need of Gas-X. The name “polecat” was slangily applied by early settlers to the skunk. Moose are farmed in Scandinavia for their meat, and IIRC their milk. I worked for an agency that did a feasibility study on whether moose farming could be done in the U.S. (Conclusion: unlikely to be successful if whitetail deer are present in the area, and in any case not economically sound.) Among the souvenirs of that study, though, was a large traffic sign from Sweden warning “Moose Crossing.” I’ll bet you nobody here has one of **them** in their office! ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2004, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moose-in-sweden-are-called-elk/274003/20 "2004-11-10T18:43:19Z")
Miind yoo, moose bites can be rather nasti. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/moose-in-sweden-are-called-elk/274003.md?page=2)