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SWEDISH WORD OF THE DAY

Swedish word of the day: pytteliten

Certain words are just fun to say, and our Swedish word of the day is certainly one of them. 'Pytteliten' is a way of describing something that's smaller than small.

Swedish word of the day: pytteliten
It's about as tiny as anything can get. Photo: Annie Spratt/Unsplash/Nicolas Raymond

It means something like tiny, miniscule, or teeny-weeny, and can be used to describe animals, buildings, or just about anything that’s much smaller than average. You wouldn’t usually use it to talk about people though, other than perhaps a particularly tiny baby.

If we take a closer look at the origin of the word, its second half – liten – is the Swedish word for small.

Liten is often a confusing word for language-learners as its endings change depending on the (grammatical) gender and number of what it’s referring to.

There’s liten/litet, used with “en” and “ett” words respectively in the indefinite form, and lilla for both genders in the definite form, as well as små which is used in the plural.

If you already know English, you can probably guess that små and liten share their origins with the words “small” and “little”, but while in English the variants are used interchangeably, in Swedish there are specific rules to follow. Pytteliten follows the same rules, so you’ll see different forms such as pyttelilla and pyttesmå

As for the origins of the first half of the word, pytt used to be used in other contexts to mean “small” in Swedish, both as an adjective and as a noun meaning “little person”. So in pytteliten it’s an intensifier, strengthening the meaning in the same way as jätteliten or mycket liten – translated literally it means “small-small”.

But wait, is there any connection to the popular Swedish dish pyttipanna, we hear you cry.

This is actually a disputed subject among Swedish linguists. Some argue that yes, the pytt here refers to the “small things” (diced potatoes, onions, and meat) that make up the meal, but others claim it comes from the verb putta, which today means “to push” or “to putt” in the golfing sense, but used to mean the same thing as English “to put”. According to that explanation, pyttipanna literally describes “putting [ingredients] in the pan”.

Examples:

Det finns en pytteliten stuga i skogen

There is a teeny tiny cabin in the wood

Pratar du svenska? Åh, pyttelite…

Do you speak Swedish? Well, a tiny bit…

Villa, Volvo, Vovve: The Local’s Word Guide to Swedish Life, written by The Local’s journalists, is now available to order in English or German. Head to lysforlag.com/vvv to read more about it.

It is also possible to buy your copy from Amazon USAmazon UKBokus or Adlibris.

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SWEDISH WORD OF THE DAY

Swedish word of the day: shit

Before you get offended by this potty-mouthed word of the day, we should probably tell you that this English swear word is a lot milder in Swedish.

Swedish word of the day: shit

The word shit in Swedish is, as you may have guessed, a loanword from English. It has its roots in Middle English schit and scythe, meaning “dung”, which in turn originated in a Proto-Indo-European word meaning to split, divide or separate.

There are a number of words in other European languages which have the same root, like schijt in Dutch, Scheiße in German, skidt in Danish, skit/skitt in Norwegian and the Swedish word skit.

So, why does Swedish have two words for shit? Essentially, they’re used (and pronounced) in different ways.

Shit, pronounced similarly to the English word but in a Swedish accent, is essentially only used as an exclamation, whether that’s for something good or bad, and most adults in Sweden wouldn’t bat an eyelid if they heard a small child saying it. 

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It normally indicates some sort of surprise or shock, similar to “wow” or “oh my god” in English. You might also hear it in the phrase shit pommes frites, which literally translates as “shit, French fries!” which a Swedish speaker might use to express surprise: shit pommes frites, har du fått en ny mobil?! (“shit French fries, have you got a new phone?!”)

If you accidentally bumped into someone in a queue, for example, you could say shit, förlåt (shit, sorry), and if you came to some sort of realisation, you could say oj shit! (oh shit!). In general, saying shit would be acceptable even in professional situations with Swedes.

Skit, on the other hand, is pronounced with the sort of whooshing sj or sk-sound at the beginning, kind of like the word wheat, but with a whistle at the start.

It’s used in Swedish in broadly the same ways you’d use shit in English, both in the sense of actual faeces (as a noun and a verb) but also as a vulgar way to describe some sort of undesirable material or thing: jag har tröttnat på den här skiten (I’m tired of this shit) or ta bort din skit från bordet (take your shit off the table).

You may also have come across it in the term skit samma (the milder variant would be strunt samma), which can be translated as “never mind” or “forget it”, or skit också if something unfortunate happens (skit också, jag missade bussen – damn it, I missed the bus).

You can also describe something as being skit, use it in phrases like jag förstår inte ett skit (I don’t understand shit) and as an intensifier: han bankade skiten ur honom (he beat the shit out of him).

In contrast to shit, skit is generally considered less acceptable to use in a professional situation… although you will probably still hear children say it.

Example sentences:

Oj shit, spelar du in det här? 

Oh shit, are you recording this?

Ska vi inte åka snart? Shit, ja, klockan är redan 12!

Shouldn’t we leave soon? Shit, yeah, it’s already 12 o’clock!

Villa, Volvo, Vovve: The Local’s Word Guide to Swedish Life, written by The Local’s journalists, is available to order. Head to lysforlag.com/vvv to read more about it. It is also possible to buy your copy from Amazon USAmazon UKBokus or Adlibris.

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