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SWEDISH WORD OF THE DAY

Swedish word of the day: skranket

Today’s word is a bar, just not the kind you want to be propping up.

Photo: Annie Spratt/Unsplash/Nicolas Raymond
Photo: Annie Spratt/Unsplash/Nicolas Raymond

A skrank is ‘a separating rail, especially in a public institution’ or ‘an upright standing construction by a staircase.’ A ‘handrail’ one could say, but not quite. In Swedish skrank would nearly never be used in that context, for that you would use the word räcke. Skrank instead refers to a domarskrank, a ‘judge’s rail’. 

English speakers will know it as ‘the bar’, that is the bar by which a lawyer stands, which is also where the English word ‘barrister’ comes from. 

Skranket primarily occurs in the expression inför skranket or sometimes as att träda inför skranket. Träda has the same root as ‘to tread’, and means ‘to walk,’ ‘to step,’ or ‘to appear.’ And inför means ‘in front of’. The meaning is then ‘to appear in front of the bar to be judged’. 

You say ‘in front’ of the bar, even though in Swedish courts, the person on trial, the lawyers, and the judge, all sit behind it, with the bar separating the audience. 

The reason for this is that until the new Swedish Code of Judicial Procedure came into effect in 1948, the bar used to be placed between the judge and the everyone else, including the lawyers and the accused. 

Svensk ordbok, the dictionary published by the Swedish Academy, gives us the origin of the word. Skrank is attested to since 1624, and it really does feel like an old word to a Swedish ear. It comes from the Low German schrank, which meant ‘bars; cordon’.

The dictionary gives us another Swedish word, inskränkt, which has the same origin. Inskränkt means to be ‘narrow minded’ or ‘limited’, most often referring to someone’s intellectual capacities.   

Try not to be inskränkt, and do your best to avoid att träda inför skranket. Ask your friends and colleagues if they know what a skrank is, chances are that the meaning of this unusual word is unknown to them, especially to the younger ones.

Example sentences:

Pelle, vet du vad ett skrank är?

Pelle, do you know what a ‘skrank’ is?

Vad händer med Pelle? Han ska träda inför skranket imorgon.

What’s up with Pelle? He’s going on trial tomorrow.

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

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SWEDISH WORD OF THE DAY

Swedish word of the day: kondis

Today’s word has two meanings: one is healthy, the other less so.

Swedish word of the day: kondis

Kondis is a great example of a Swedish slang word ending in -is, which essentially is the shortened version of a longer word.

Somewhat confusingly, in the case of kondis, there are actually two similar words which have both been shortened in this way, resulting in one word with two different meanings.

The first meaning comes from konditori, the Swedish version of a patisserie or bakery, which you might recognise from the German word Konditor (a confectioner or pastry chef), originally from the Latin word condītor, which referred to a person who preserved, pickled or seasoned food.

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The word kondis can either refer to a konditori itself, or to the type of baked goods and pastries they offer. A kondis differs somewhat from a bageri (bakery), which is more likely to focus on savoury or rustic baked goods, like bread (although many kondis also sell bread, and many bagerier will serve some sort of cake or sweet treat too). 

A kondis is also more likely to have some area where you can sit and enjoy your food on-site, perhaps with a cup of tea or coffee, while bakeries are more likely to be take-away only.

The second meaning of kondis is a shortened version of the word kondition, which translates roughly as your endurance or fitness. If you’re good at running, you might be described as having bra kondition or bra kondis, roughly equal to being fit. 

Another similar slang word for this in Swedish would be flås, which technically translates to “panting”, but can be used in the same way as kondis to describe physical endurance or fitness.

Example sentences:

Om man äter för mycket kondis kan man få dålig kondis.

If you eat too many pastries you could end up less fit.

Sprang du hela vägen hit? Du måste ha bra kondis!

Did you run the whole way here? You must be in good shape.

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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