Tiny questions with quick answers - continuing thread

To be fair, most 17 year olds we know don’t live in Finland!

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OK, looks like I was wrong about the mist. I saw that in a dictionary, so thought it must be right. I would naturally feel it as being the evening weather after a couple of really hot days, when you just know that there is going to be a thunder storm.

But Finland dosn’t speak a scandinavian language. It’s in the same Group as Estonian and Hungarian.

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I think Swedish is compulsory in the schools, but i may be wrong! @Novem?

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Yup :slight_smile:

Swedish isn’t too bad if you are from the North of Britain. OK, I’m exaggerating wildly, but “Hallå” and “hem” (for hallo and home) sound the same in my home town. Also I just bumped into an internet link (polite term) for a significant list of English words that are of Norse origin.

When I first heard the word “mygu” (asphyxiate, smother, stifle) I wondered if there was a, albeit loose, connection with muggy which I take as humid weather that’s still, stifling and, wait for it, makes it difficult to catch your breath.

Just a thought.

@JohnYoung @Sionned @garethrking

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Well it’s certainly plausible…

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or maybe that unspoken word “Fries” - the taxi and OK of the international chip world.

Oh I hate that one, don’t you??

Although it is a good prop when one wishes to annoy one’s fellow workers in the office - whenever a colleague asks you to do something, answer ‘Sure - you want fries with that…?’

Very effective :wink:

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Ty-car like ty bach not fach because Ty is masculine.

I got a shocked look on bwtcamp once when I asked for “sosej a chips” sounded like I was breaking the no-English rule. More “when in Rome” really.

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No, I don’t like the word Fries, perhaps because of Mcdonaldisation, which has made it a global word - it’s probably a word that most second language English speakers would know, rather than chips - which would probably be associated more with crisps. Unless the chips are part of a chocolate chip cookie - which is obviously really a biscuit with bits of chocolate in it.

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I think the Americans called them ‘french fries’ long before McDonalds.

I occasionally have a McDonalds. :wink:

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I never like the buns in McDonalds. Preferred Wimpy back in the day!

Oh yes! There was a good one in Aberystwyth, near the seafront. Long gone, of course. It became National Milk Bars, and I think that’s long gone as well!

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I got similar when I said “jyst”. (They couldn’t hear my spelling).

There was a handy one in Cardiff that I used to go to on Match days!

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I’m not sure if this still applies, but in my continental touring days, I agree that Frites were chips and chips were crisps. Nuss were nuts, glace was ice cream …

OK, I’m happy to defer, but “jyst” was probably the first word that I heard in the wild, well Crymych actually. I think it was for the dim ond (only) meaning.

Jyst (in many places jest) is completely assimilated into native Welsh, and is one of those words that will definitely make you sound more like a native if you use it! For example,

o’n i jest isio gwybod…
I just wanted to know…

sounds thoroughly authentic, I would say.

When just means only, dim ond is fine however - though often shortened to 'mond.

’mond punt sy gen i
I’ve just got a pound

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