Balderdash!
'The Norwegian language is by no means impoverished. It is its users who are impoverished' — as the kids say on TikTok.
Bah! Humbug!
Today I intend to highlight some delightfully peculiar words in the Norwegian language that sadly are increasingly falling out of circulation. Let us begin with insults!
Norwegian can be surprisingly punchy. Savour, for instance, the word lurendreider (a sly con artist) or spjæling (a scoundrel). Don't they feel wonderful on the tongue? And what about an ødelandsk (wasteful), ågerkarlsk (usurious) spradebasse (a pompous dandy)? Tap the fellow ahead of you in the taxi queue on the shoulder and call him a lømmelsk slabbedask (a loutish slob). That will elevate everyone's Saturday evening — including the police interview that follows.
There is more to play with. One can, for example, easily rattle off snørrvalp (snotty brat), snikksnakk (tittle-tattle) and snurrepiperier (tomfoolery). And why buy snop (sweets) and godis (candy) (splendid words in their own right) when you can ask for sukkertøy (sugar confections)? Or simply sukkerier (sugarities)? And why not just apply the grandmotherly suffix '-ier' to absolutely every noun? Snakkerier (chatteries), knallerier (bangeries — i.e. fireworks), drikkerier (drinkeries): the possibilities are endless.
When it comes to expletives, the language is equally rich. There is the Tintin-esque 'Splitte mine bramseil!' (Shiver my topsails!) There is also the delightfully redundant 'sludder og pølsevev!' (roughly: fiddlesticks and sausage wrapping!). In the same neighbourhood one finds 'vrøvl og tullball' (balderdash and gobbledygook) for when one word alone simply will not do. Here one also finds an interesting sub-genre of religiously inspired exclamations such as 'Gode gud' (Good God) and 'Milde Moses!' (Merciful Moses!) My personal favourite, however, is the positively Dickensian 'Bah! Humbug!'
I harbour a small dream that some of these expressions will come back into use. That we shall once again stroll through a 1950s television drama where the words flow as naturally from the actors' lips as honey from a jar. We need not necessarily go full Agatha Christie about it, but there was surely something to be said for a time when one could call someone a 'scoundrel' without it being considered ironic.
That is the dream I carry.
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This piece was originally published in Klassekampen (a Norwegian daily newspaper) in 2022.
