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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

‘Opinion Taliban’, ‘tree murder’ make 2011 new Swedish word list

Words inspired by flip-flopping politicians and mobile phone apps, as well as creative terms for opinionated people are among the newest Swedish words, according to an annual list of new and topical words released on Thursday.

Published: 29 December 2011 10:59 CET
'Opinion Taliban', 'tree murder' make 2011 new Swedish word list
Glenn Fleishman; Dezidor; Arild Vågen/Wikipedia (File)

Every year, the Swedish Language Council (Språkrådet) publishes a list of new, popular, or topical words of the year.

Among the new words on the 2011 list are “Säpojogg” (‘Säpo jog’), a term describing a run or race emulating how security service agents jogged in suits and ties behind a vehicle, such as at Crown Princess Victoria’s wedding.

Other words included “fulparkerare” (‘ugly parker’), used to describe someone who parks their car in a particularly egregious or unlawful manner and “mobildagis” (‘mobile phone daycare’), describing a place for the collective storage of multiple mobile phones.

The increasing popularity of mobile computing devices also gave rise to the verb “appa” (‘to app’), describing when someone solves a problem using a mobile phone app, as well as “padda” (‘paddy’), used as a nickname for someone’s iPad or tablet computer.

“We try to collect as many new words as possible while they’re still new and fresh,” said Birgitta Lindgren, the Language Council’s editor of new words, to newspaper Dagens Nyheter (DN).

Some words on the list are more topical than others.

“Juholtare”, for instance, can be used by Swedes to describe a situation when someone says something hastily and then has to take it back.

The term is inspired by Håkan Juholt, who took over as leader of the Social Democratic party in March 2011, and his habit of making rash but incorrect statements.

And “Terja” has rapidly become the new Swedish verb for manipulating a photograph, after nature photographer Terje Hellesø confessed to having manipulated his award-winning animal photographs.

The use of “trädmord” (‘tree murder’) has also increased in 2011 in the wake of a series of incidents around Stockholm whereby trees were damaged or poisoned, causing them to die.

“Åsiktstaliban” (‘opinion Taliban’), meanwhile, refers to someone who only tolerates one opinion in an issue, while “attitydinkontinens” (attitude incontinence’) can be used to describe one’s inability to keep one’s opinions to oneself.

It isn’t easy to determine which words make the cut, explained Lindgren.

“We have a long list that we start with. The words partly come from the general public, and then we’ve a number of people who go through newspapers. Then we choose a number of words.”

Her own favourite word of the year is “flipperförälder” (‘pinball parent’).

“It’s a parent who dares to let go of their kids. The word refers to a pinball game, where the parent figuratively shoots the child away and lets it bounce around for a bit. It’s the opposite of a curling parent,” said Lindgren, referring to a common Swedish term to describe parents who are overprotective of their children.

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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Le Havre rules: How to talk about French towns beginning with Le, La or Les

If you're into car racing, French politics or visits to seaside resorts you are likely at some point to need to talk about French towns with a 'Le' in the title. But how you talk about these places involves a slightly unexpected French grammar rule. Here's how it works.

Published: 30 November 2021 13:04 CET
Updated: 4 December 2021 17:47 CET
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre.
An old WW2 photo taken in the French port town of Le Havre. It can be difficult to know what prepositions to use for places like this - so we have explained it for you. (Photo by AFP)

If you’re listening to French chat about any of those topics, at some point you’re likely to hear the names of Mans, Havre and Touquet bandied about.

And this is because French towns that have a ‘Le’ ‘La’ or ‘Les’ in the title lose them when you begin constructing sentences. 

As a general rule, French town, commune and city names do not carry a gender. 

So if you wanted to describe Paris as beautiful, you could write: Paris est belle or Paris est beau. It doesn’t matter what adjectival agreement you use. 

For most towns and cities, you would use à to evoke movement to the place or explain that you are already there, and de to explain that you come from/are coming from that location:

Je vais à Marseille – I am going to Marseille

Je suis à Marseille – I am in Marseille 

Je viens de Marseille – I come from Marseille 

But a select few settlements in France do carry a ‘Le’, a ‘La’ or a ‘Les’ as part of their name. 

In this case the preposition disappears when you begin formulating most sentences, and you structure the sentence as you would any other phrase with a ‘le’, ‘la’ or ‘les’ in it.

Masculine

Le is the most common preposition for two names (probably something to do with the patriarchy) with Le Havre, La Mans, Le Touquet and the town of Le Tampon on the French overseas territory of La Réunion (more on that later)

A good example of this is Le Havre, a city in northern France where former Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe, who is tipped to one day run for the French presidency, serves as mayor. 

Edouard Philippe’s twitter profile describes him as the ‘Maire du Havre’, using a masculine preposition

Here we can see that his location is Le Havre, and his Twitter handle is Philippe_LH (for Le Havre) but when he comes to describe his job the Le disappears.

Because Le Havre is masculine, he describes himself as the Maire du Havre rather than the Maire de Havre (Anne Hidalgo, for example would describe herself as the Maire de Paris). 

For place names with ‘Le’ in front of them, you should use prepositions like this:

Ja vais au Touquet – I am going to Le Touquet

Je suis au Touquet – I am in Le Touquet 

Je viens du Touquet – I am from Le Touquet 

Je parle du Touquet – I am talking about Le Touquet

Le Traité du Touquet – the Le Touquet Treaty

Feminine

Some towns carry ‘La’ as part of their name. La Rochelle, the scenic town on the west coast of France known for its great seafood and rugby team, is one such example.

In French ‘à la‘ or ‘de la‘ is allowed, while ‘à le‘ becomes au and ‘de le’ becomes du. So for ‘feminine’ towns such as this, you should use the following prepositions:

Je vais à La Rochelle – I am going to La Rochelle

Je viens de La Rochelle – I am coming from La Rochelle 

Plural

And some places have ‘Les’ in front of their name, like Les Lilas, a commune in the suburbs of Paris. The name of this commune literally translates as ‘The Lilacs’ and was made famous by Serge Gainsbourg’s song Le Poinçonneur des Lilas, about a ticket puncher at the Metro station there. 

When talking about a place with ‘Les’ as part of the name, you must use a plural preposition like so:

Je suis le poinçonneur des Lilas – I am the ticket puncher of Lilas 

Je vais aux Lilas – I am going to Les Lilas

Il est né aux Lilas – He was born in Les Lilas  

Islands 

Islands follow more complicated rules. 

If you are talking about going to one island in particular, you would use à or en. This has nothing to do with gender and is entirely randomised. For example:

Je vais à La Réunion – I am going to La Réunion 

Je vais en Corse – I am going to Corsica 

Generally speaking, when talking about one of the en islands, you would use the following structure to suggest movement from the place: 

Je viens de Corse – I am coming from Corsica 

For the à Islands, you would say:

Je viens de La Réunion – I am coming from La Réunion 

When talking about territories composed of multiple islands, you should use aux.

Je vais aux Maldives – I am going to the Maldives. 

No preposition needed 

There are some phrases in French which don’t require any a preposition at all. This doesn’t change when dealing with ‘Le’ places, such as Le Mans – which is famous for its car-racing track and Motorcycle Grand Prix. Phrases that don’t need a preposition include: 

Je visite Le Mans – I am visiting Le Mans

J’aime Le Mans – I like Le Mans

But for a preposition phrase, the town becomes simply Mans, as in Je vais au Mans.

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