Hmm, maybe for the Swedes the idea of fun is calm.
Hee hee! That is funny. I think I’ll call my pillowcases Örngotter from now on. (Wait, did I get that plural right? I only speak Danish…and I can sing the Pippi song…)
The plural is örngott.
The plural form of this word is the same as the singular.
So it doesn’t mean “ear candy”? Clearly my Swedish isn’t as good as I thought 
My boss says putetrekk in Svorsk. I think the dictionary would disagree with him but it’s a lot easier to understand than örngott. And if you’re wondering why I talk about bedclothes with my boss, recall that I work at a kindergarten, and the littlest kids still need afternoon naps, so I’m afraid it’s a lot more boring than it sounds.
hilarious sketch about danes not being able to understand each other.
Any such analysis must address Cymraeg, or Welsh. You gotta love a language whose name is pronounced, more or less, “cum rag.” And which is frequently inflected so that it sounds like English played backwards.
and also the language (sorry, no site or anything, but it’s TRUE) that utilises a sound I hope don’t have an IPA notation, and come to think of it, I don’t even know if there’s a word for it either, but here goes: stick your tongue out, press lips together, and blow. Now consider this sound occuring frequently in speech.
swedish, by the way, sounds childish to some norwegians (or probably all… damn swedes)
I think your etymology is closer to the truth, even if the spelling today is closer to eagle than ear (örn - öron).
Putetrekk is Norwegian, but we also say putevar. ‘pute’ is Norwegian for pillow. According to the Swedish wikipedia, örngott is limited to pillow covers as bed linen, while non-bed pillows are covered by kuddvar. ‘Kudde’ being Swedish for pillow. Kuddvar is also the cloth part of the actual pillow. Again acording to wikipedia.
That was really funny!
“Hage” does have a meaning in Swedish, though: it means “pasture”.
The etymology I alluded to earlier is that “örn” indeed comes from “öra”, and “gott” is from a now-archaic verb meaning something like “recieve” (I’m guessing it’s related to the English “get”). So the word esentially means “something that recieves the ear”, which also explains why it is limited to bed pillows.
Slightly unrelated, but I would suggest anyone try speaking German with Norwegian intonation.
Zey vill be schott as partisans!!1!
Wasn’t Van Gogh’s girlfriend named Örngott?
:smack: Of course I would screw up the quote.
It’s a voiceless lateral fricative, and the IPA sign is an l with a little curlicue in the middle. To make the sound you put your mouth in the position to say “L” as in “lamp” but hiss instead. Americans usually hear it as a “sh” sound for some reason.
I tried, but it’s hard to know if I’m making the right sound or if I’m just biased towards making the sound I’m thinking of. Anyway, better try: it’s the kind of sound you make when emulating a fart. I don’t think anyone would hear that as an “sh”?
ETA: listened to your sound on wikipedia (supposing it’s a voiceless alveolar lateral fricative), and it’s not that one. It’s way more bizzarre)
Adding my voice to the pile. As somone who learned swedish as an adult I have no particular problem speaking with norwegians and danes as long as they try to speak “scandinavian”. I had a boss from Oslo who refused on principle to adjust her way of speaking , and I understood about 85% (going up to 90% after I had a moment or two to process it). She was amazed that I could understand everything our colleague from Tromsö (very much northern Norway) without a problem. I explained that it was because he made an effort to be understood.
Anyhoo, another funny mix-up is the word tös which means little girl in swedish, but apparantly, prostitute/harlot in norwegian.
Then you have balle which in danish means a bale or a pile of things, whereas in southern sweden it means yer bum-cheeks, and in the rest of sweden means dick.
It’s possible that kneppe in danish and knäppa in swedish could be confused. One means to fuck and the other means to button or click (click your fingers etc).
Danish and Norwegian are very close. Especially written (in bokmål) but also spoken. Perhaps like Russian and Ukrainian. Danish and Swedish is a bit further. But still mutually understandable with a bit of effort and most Danes knows a number of Swedish words to help them carry over. The big hick is numbers. Where Danish use a different numbering system than Swedish. Danes usually understand Swedish numbers, but the rest of Scandinavia have a hard time understanding why the Danish numbering system is superior to all others. That’s because they are stupid. I mean, all the others of course.
Faroese and Icelandic are a different issue. Faroese is sort of halfway between Danish and Icelandic. You can understand most Faroese sentences when you read it, but hearing is much more difficult.
I make a point of never switching to English when speaking to other Nordic speaking people.
For some reason people who learn Danish as a second language, don’t seem to pick up understanding the other Nordic languages.
We all make fun of each other. Norwegians have some really funny words because they construct them out of other words instead of importing (like Icelandic and Faroese) and Swedish speak like they are singing while Danes talk like they are mumbling with a potatoes in the mouth. Of course the last is a dirty slanderous lie only fools would believe.
All right, please enlighten us how that seemingly absurd numbering system is superior.