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SWEDISH WORD OF THE DAY

​​Swedish word of the day: mareld

When you have milky seas you have a sea on fire.

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

In English ‘milky seas’, also called ‘mareel’, is the phenomenon whereby the surface of the sea sometimes lights up or glows translucently in varying shades of blue. In Swedish this is called mareld.

Mareld, which can extend for hundreds of miles across the ocean, is caused by bioluminescence, light emitted by biological organisms. In the case of mareld, it’s caused by microscopic plankton, which glow brightly enough at night to be visible from satellites orbiting the Earth. You may have seen it in Kon-Tiki, the feature film about famed Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl. 

The plankton emit light when disturbed by boat propellers or swimmers, or more often by predatory fish. The light is actually a defensive reaction to small fish praying on them, and it has evolved to attract larger predatory fish that will feed on the fish eating the plankton, on the principle of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’. 

Mareld comes from Old Norse.

But the mar- in mareld is not from mara, the female demon who rides on people’s chests in their sleep, causing night-mares, or, in Swedish, a mardröm

The Old Norse word for ‘sea’ was not hav, a word which first appears in the time of the Vikings, but marr, close to the Latin equivalent mare.

The word mareld in Danish and Norwegian is morild, in English, at least in the Shetland dialect, you get ‘mareel’, in Icelandic maurildi, and in Finnish merituli.

The -eld is of course from the Swedish word for ‘fire’, the origin of which is also old and Germanic.

Mareld can be breathtaking, but is unfortunately not something you will see that often. 

Many may not even know what mareld is, so ask your Swedish friends if they are familiar with it, or if they maybe have even seen it.

Example sentences:

Titta vad vackert! Vad är det? Det är mareld. 

Look how beautiful! What is it? It is mareel.

Visste du att mareld ibland syns från rymden? 

Did you know that mareel is sometimes visible from space?

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: 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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