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SWEDISH WORD OF THE DAY

​​Swedish word of the day: spex

Super silly student spectacles or sometimes just a person acting silly.

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

Svenska akademiens ordlista, the word-list of the Swedish Academy, lists spex as ‘amateur performances, often by students, with various types of parodies; fun performance or joke.’

The word spex is derived from spektakel which is the same as the English ‘spectacle’, as in a ‘a public show or display, especially on a large scale.’ Yet there is a difference. Sometimes also known as studentspex, a spex is usually, though not always, tied to student-life. 

The word itself, according to Svenska akademiens ordbok (‘The Dictionary of the Swedish Academy’), originated as a student slang word for the spectacles put up by Swedish students at certain universities. These student shows are now also increasingly a part of Finnish student tradition, where they are called speksi

Spex are widespread in the student cities of Uppsala, Gothenburg, Lund, Umeå, Linköping, Örebro, Stockholm, and now increasingly at Finnish universities. Participants are usually students, but sometimes young academics as well.

The tradition originated sometime around 1850 in Uppsala, which is the home of one of Sweden’s most famous universities, known among other things for rejecting Michel Foucault’s doctoral thesis. 

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The original spex were parodies of all the classical dramas in Latin and Classical Greek that the students had to watch at Uppsala university. Even today the spex is often an irreverent play on an actual play, with anachronistic references to contemporary personalities, including lots of wordplay. 

In a spex the audience is encouraged to call actors back in after especially appreciated lines or scenes, to do a reprise. And, unlike in regular plays, actors often look directly at the audience rather than at the other actors. 

The music used is often well known tunes with new humorous lyrics, again often with lots of wordplay, and the accompaniment can vary from a lonely piano to a full band or orchestra, to sometimes just being acappella. 

Another characteristic of the spex is that it often has reverse gender casting, women playing men and men playing women.

If you feel like going to a spex, the best time to enjoy one by your local student body is in the springtime. Follow your local student body on social media for the latest updates. 

Another use of the word spex is to describe when a person is acting a bit silly to elicit laughter. You can then say that someone is trying to spexa till det, (‘to ‘spex’ it up’).

Example sentences:

Kolla, kolla! Nu försöker Bettan spexa till det igen!

Look, look! Bettan is trying to spex it up again!

Ska du gå på spexet ikväll?

Are you going to the spex tonight?

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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