I read Hamlet back in high school and to this day my absolute favorite thing about it was when Guildenstern was trying to fool Hamlet into doing something or other and Hamlet’s savvy to it but rather than saying “you’re lying and trying to trick me” instead Hamlet outta nowhere whips out this flute and tells Guildenstern to play it.
And Guildenstern is all “I dont know how to play a flute, my lord”
And Hamlet takes a dramatic pause before he absolutely ruins Guildenstern with, “Well thats funny considering you thought you could play me”
this post sounds like im exaggerating but im not it’s straight up canon
inspired by @forestlion‘s list in german, i decided to rank the same fruits and berries (plus two i wanted to include that wasn’t included before) by their swedish names!
and just as them, i rank the name not the taste.
äpple (apple): it’s basic, but it pops nicely in your mouth. gets confusing when you compound, is it äppelpaj or äpplepaj? it varies from person to person, i’m not even sure if it’s bound to any dialects. 3/10
päron (pear): this one i really like! a distinct and long ä, a beautiful sound. also a slang for parents. (mina päron – my parents) 6.2/10
persika (peach): this is part of one of my favourite words ever, persikokristall. i really like the flow of this word, and it reminds me of “persian” and things that are persian are very beautiful so, 9/10
banan (banana): it’s quite boring. but if you pronounce it with a different intonation (bAnan instead of banAn) it means “the lane” so 2/10 for multi use of word.
jordgubbe (strawberry): jord means earth or soil. gubbe means man, or more specifically old man. an old earth man? hOW is this related to a berry?? did we think the berry looked like a wrinkly old man? 0.3/10 for being confusing and dirty from soil
smultron (wild strawberry): i lOVE this!! it’s so cute! just like the berry itself, so tiny and a lil chubby. 10/10
vinbär (currant): vin means wine. this is not the berry you make wine from. sounds pretty though. 2/10 for not making sense
plommon (plum): i really like words with double m’s in them. the pronounciation of the o’s here however can be confusing. 7/10
dadel (date): a word that devides the population. should the a be long or short? short a seems to be the most popular, but according to logic and pronounciation rules it should be long. 1/10 for making people fight
hallon (raspberry): yes. good. very good. you’re able to make puns from it by changing emphasis from the a to the o, it will sound like hallå (hello). 8.6/10
ananas (pineapple): when i was like 14 a classmate got embarrassed in english class because a guy asked her “so, is it pronounced like Ananas or anAnas?” “uhhh, Ananas?” “no, it’s pineapple”. 5/10 for being so easy to translate to so many languages – except like english and spanish and probably a couple more
vindruva (grape): now THIS is what you make wine from! but usually we actually drop the vin part and often say just druva. especially in compound words; druvjuice. 9.2/10 for being cool as heck and easy to understand even when a part of it i dropped
lime (lime): well it sounds nice but it’s so boring, we just use the english word? why couldn’t we make up our own? 4/10
citron (lemon): i love when we use c for an s-sounds in swedish. it’s such a beautiful letter. adds fanciness to a word. 7.7/10
apelsin (orange): so appearantly this means apple from china? i had no idea. i love that we don’t just call it the colour orange though. and it’s a beautiful word in itself. 9/10
björnbär (blackberry): bear berry! i don’t know where the connection to bears comes from, but i love it. also love that there’s both an ä and ö in the name. 8.5/10
mandarin (tangerine, mandarine): the exact same name as the chinese language. can be confusing, idk. a nice word though, a nice flow. 6/10
krusbär (gooseberry): krus means either jar/stonkard, or ripple (like on the water surface). i imagine the ripple feeling is what you get when you eat it? i mean that’s kinda how i feel at least. or it’s just placebo because of my association. in any case, 5.2/10
körsbär (cherry): now this one!! what a wicked name this is! again, both an ä and an ö! and TWO sh-sounds! but they’re spelled differently! k and rs. i think it’s super cool. 10/10
hjortron (cloudberry): hjort means deer. both the animal and the berry come from the north, i like that connection. name is just as unusual and unique as the berry. 9.6/10
Identifying as nonbinary can be difficult when learning languages, but Sweden has an ‘official’ gender neutral pronoun: hen. I did some research on it and got some notes from natives that I thought I’d share!
As I’ve mentioned, “hen” is the Swedish neutral pronoun, very similar to the use of singular “they” in English.
It took inspiration from the neutral pronoun of Finland (hän) and after much debate “hen” was adopted.
Its use is:
– for talking about someone who’s gender is unknown
– for talking about someone who identifies as neither male nor female
– when the gender is unnecessary in the conversation
It’s been used in various places in Sweden, some say since the 60s, but was in mainstream media in 2013 and placed into the official Swedish dictionary in 2015.
It has two main uses in Sweden. The first is, obviously, for LGBT+ groups but the second is interesting. Some schools or nurseries have started using “hen” for their pupils so as not to push gender roles or identities on their students.
The kind of thinking I like to see, the kind of thing I like to think about– and tell my students to think about.
Amazing how much a movie could be fixed by telling it from the woman’s POV.
“I was genuinely surprised by just how creepy Pratt’s character is when you take away his POV. We don’t know whether to trust him or not, believe him or not … We feel the cruelty as she feels it.”
I mean, I doubt many women would be nearly as surprised but yeah, a very interesting take on how stories are not the same when told starting from different points and perspectives
Since I can’t log into Tumblr at work, I just use my phone to share this comment at Kotaku regarding Anita Sarkeesian’s appearance on the Colbert Report.
lav3nderwolftumblr 
You must be logged in to post a comment.