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LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Why has Norway’s PM Erna Solberg been accused of ‘swallowing camels against the direction of their hair’?

Why on earth would a Norwegian compare a prime minister to a camel?

Published: 15 January 2020 15:05 CET
Why has Norway's PM Erna Solberg been accused of 'swallowing camels against the direction of their hair'?
Prime Minister Erna Solberg. File photo: AFP

Prime Minister Erna Solberg was on Wednesday accused by Labour deputy leader Hadia Tajik of 'svelger kamelene mothårs for å få sitte i regjering': literally, 'swallowing camels against the direction of their hair to stay in government'.

Huh?

What does it mean? 

Å svelge kameler, directly translated as ‘to swallow camels’, is an old expression dating all the way back to the Bible.

When Jesus accuses a group of scholars of “screening mosquitoes, but swallowing camels” somewhere in the New Testament, he implies that they were obsessing over minor details and flaws, but blindly accepting major sins.

According to the Norwegian language guardians Språkrådet, the referral to the camel was due to the fact that it was widely considered an improper animal at the time – plus the obvious fact that a camel is huge, hairy and both tricky and unpleasant to swallow.

But how do politicians become camels?

Since the Bible was written, the meaning of å svelge kameler has slightly changed. Today it is popularly used in politics to describe doing something you don’t really want to. But you do it. Not necessarily because it's the right or honourable thing to do, but because it needs to be done.

So let’s say you are a British citizen who would like to remain in the EU. Well, a Norwegian would pat you on the back and say that noen ganger i livet må man svelge kameler – 'sometimes in life you have to do things you don't want to'.

Don't confuse it with the English 'suck it up' (Norwegians are way too polite and nice for that). It's really about making a sacrifice or a compromise that doesn't feel good.

It remains to be seen what hairy camels Boris Johnson himself will have to swallow in future negotiations with the EU.

It could be that the British PM will find himself, as another Norwegian expression would put it, sittende med skjegget i postkassa – 'sat with his beard stuck in the mailbox'. 

Norway's own PM, Erna Solberg, has already swallowed a dromedary or two, according to political opponent Tajik.

The Labour deputy leader used the humorous turn of phrase in response to a serious decision made by Solberg's government, to repatriate from Syria a woman linked to the Islamic State group and her two children, one of them reportedly seriously ill, citing humanitarian reasons.

Solberg has been criticized for the decision by a partner in her coalition government. The populist, anti-immigration Progress Party has argued that the risk of allowing a person linked to Isis into Norway outweighs the country's humanitarian duty to help the child, effectively accusing Solberg of not making Norway's security her first priority.

The comments by opposition deputy leader Tajik were designed to make the point that such a major disagreement is untenable between members of the same government.

“This issue shows, first and foremost, that Erna Solberg will truly swallow camels against the direction of the hair to stay in government,” Tajik told NRK.

Tajik's “against the direction of the hair” (mothårs) flourish is an addition to the expression which is new to us, but appears to suggest that Solberg is swallowing camels in an even more difficult way than usual in an effort to keep her cabinet intact.

Have you heard it before and do you know more about the context? Let us know.

READ ALSO: Norway repatriates Isis-linked woman and children from Syria

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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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