Words & Images

Arctic Terns. Get it? (Thanks Wikipedia)

Every now and then I hear or read an expression and wonder: is that an English expression taken up in Swedish, or was it originally Swedish (or German, or whatever... ) that has come into English? With so much English influence in the world it is hard to know where things originally came from, and whether phrases like "to have several irons in the fire", or "earmarked" are just literal translations from the English. There are some variations of standards too: in Swedish when the cat is away, the mice dance on the table (which almost rhymes in Swedish). And some have absolutely no equivalent: "there is no danger on the roof", or "he has tomtens in his attic", (which could be like having bats in the belfry).

Some other tidbits I have found interesting:

- trubadur ("troubadour"). Brings to mind 14-17th century men in tights with lyres, mandolins, and codpieces. "Brave Sir Robin ran away, ran away, ran away..." But here refers to your typical singer songwriter types, a man or two with a guitar playing away in a corner of a pub somewhere.

-sqvatt: ("nothing, a trifle, as in "He don't know squatt"). Yep, if you're imagining southern rednecks with tobacco in their mouth using the word 'squatt', you're on the right track.

- trähuggare ("treehugger") - pretty much the exact opposite of what you are thinking of. Treehuggers in Sweden carry axes, chainsaws, and earn their living ensuring trees go to the pulp mills...

- jublar - the verb form of jubilation. We've obviously lost the verb form of that in english, so what would it be: "to jubilify"?

- hör ni ("listen here"). Initially to me sounded like "honey", which when I first heard it in the Spex (uni musical). It was used mostly by guys to get other guys' attention... and I started to wonder just how close we would become after our "team building" weekend...

- Smutsig ("dirty"), the general word for dirty, but maybe the Swedes developed their reputation for blue movies early, so we associate "smut" with the swedes in much more narrow sense.

- o ("un"). My favourite just now, a strange use of "o". If you remember back to a previous post there are some cool words made by negating nouns with "o": a storm is un-weather, a weed is un-grass, etc. Apparently in Piteå just south of here they retain a very old rural dialect, and take things one step further
and add 'o' to verbs. Together with some funny business with the word som, rather than say, say "Jag har inte varit där", (lit. 'I have not been there'), they say "där har jag som ovarit" ='there (as a place) have I un-been'. Kul, va?

- kurva ("curve"). This is also the hungarian word for "whore". The first Ikea in Stockholm was built at Kungens Kurva (The Kings...), where apparently an earlier King had a car accident. Was he rubbernecking at the time..., or just "asking the nice lady for directions"...

- kanske ("maybe"). This is the commonest weird pronounciation thing that pops up and which I always find weird. Soft combinations of sk, stj etc have these gutteral almost throat-clearing sounds. Up in the north it is pronounced basically like "kan-she", but elsewhere can be "kan-hwe" or drawn out to "kan-shwear". Emily, now in Iceland, reassures me that there it is phonetic, and is pronounced as looks, almost like a Kransky sausage.

-kanon ("fantastic"). Can be used for example as the answer to "how is it". Obviously the invention of the canon was considered to be the best thing since sliced bread. Even after the placement of far too many of them on the Vasa caused the pride and joy of the swedish fleet to sink a couple of hundred meters out of the harbour on its first voyage.

Rutmönster (root-monster!). Actually a "grid pattern", as used in the LTU logotype on all advertising (with the main image of course being the pretty girl in the parka).



The uni created a logotype all based on blue, white, and snow to position its brand clearly, which when applied to everything does actually look good. (Check it out at www.ltu.se). But there is also a bit of a cringe factor. The branding seemed to have worked for the last couple of years with a lot of growth in student numbers, but this year, the first with a new Rektor, has seen some disappointing enrolments.

In the background of the image is Teknikens Hus, a science museum oriented for kids, which has won awards for being "the best small science museum in Europe".

Seasons change... supposedly

The Baltic Sea, about a month ago, when flying down to Stockholm

So it's been over a month since my last post... my how time flies! Sorry about that. I finish work here in early July, and the analysis of my results has turned out to be more difficult and time consuming than expected, so basically I've just been working hard. And I'm also looking for work, which is really time consuming - trawling through the web and registering the same details over and over, writing cover letters etc., so it has been an unexciting month without major events.

Next week though I am off to the US for a week to sit down with my collaborators and sort out the analysis issues that are too complex to do by email. I fly back to Linkoping Fri night, and if the plane is not delayed hopefully make the train to Linköping to play drums with Lurharne for the last day and a half of the Student Orchestra Festival. I then stay on in Linkoping for another week to do some microscopy and start handing over my project to a new PhD student, then back up to Luleå where my former supervisor from Aus will be visiting for a week...

...and hopefully spring will hit, if not summer. I was in Linkoping a few weeks ago and people were in shorts, there were flowers everywhere, the smell of spring was in the air. It was time for "the year's first soft-serve ice-cream " - a major event. The above ice-pack photo was taken just after takeoff from Lulea. Things havent improved much. Here today it actually snowed for a few minutes, though I guess the snow passing my 4th floor window is just rain on the ground. Nights still get to 0, and days are grey and wet only several degrees +. Occasionally the sun pops out and it is glorious (but cold).

Urban icebergs, a few weeks ago.
Very few patches of snow are left around the town now.

So what kind of work am I after? Short answer: applied research or research management, ie working in industry on commercial products, a bit more downstream from the fundamental materials development. I 'm looking for these jobs in Australia and here in Europe mainly, but also considering the US. Basically I am after a career building job that has possibilities for development outside of just lab activities, wherever it will be.

So, to pics that havent made it to the blog yet.

Standing at the edge of Gammelstadsviken after about 20mins x-country skiing, trying not to use my bum shoulder (still not fixed), I was looking at the beautiful sunset and thinking to myself ("shit, I'd better get on my way home before the sun actually sets!"). Yes, I did take a wrong turn, and even though I was 99% confident I knew where I was and which way to go back, it was a relief to finally see the welcoming streetlights of Porsön in the distance.

On the way to Björkskatan

Some old bits of other towns I've passed:

Boden. Apparently famously, Stalin (or was it Lenin, I've forgotten) passed through Boden on his way back to Russia, before the revolution.

Old Linköping

The church in Linköping

Västerås

A hot Christina, grilling the balcony.

Pretending to be one of those troll dolls...

Valborg (Walpurgis) was last Fri, where we welcome the spring in by burning stuff. Like last year I went to the brasan (bonfire) at the Uni. It was definitely hot near the fire, but cold everywhere else, so in the two hours between the lighting of it and the fireworks we warmed ourselves up with coffee and snaps in the deparment coffee room.

The SnapsAkademi singers were present, with their curtain-cord hats and tails. I think I've written somewhere before that the Swedes generally are very casual in their dress - work is mostly jeans and maybe a shirt with a suit jacket, no tie. But when they go formal, they really do it. Most Swedish men will own tails, not just concert pianists and magicians. They are used at graduation ceremonies, by both graduands and audience.


The fireworks was actually impressive, though hard to capture in one pic. Last year our warming up with spirits meant we kinda missed it...


The next day was the 1st of May - May Day, a public holiday. I and a bunch of Germans (what is the collective term? A gaggle?) went a'grillin to Gammelstads viken (snowy pic above). The path was very slushy. The visitors from Stuttgart had white sneakers. Not a good combination.