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Mar 10, 2004One six month subscription to the gym at Eriksdalsbadet: 2300 kr.
One "Free Brunei" T-shirt, just arrived: $20.99
My Blogger "hoodie", just arrived: Free
The looks I got from the good burghers of Stockholm tonight: Priceless
And as I'm on a roll plagiarizing other people's creative geniusParodying MasterCard ads:
Possibly expensive...
The Swedish word for the day is Nordostersjˆkustartilleriflygspaningssimulatoranl‰ggningsmaterielunderhÂllsuppfˆljningssystemdiskussionsinl‰ggsfˆrberedelsearbeten
Update 10/3/2004: Now minus hyphens to please the pedants among you.
Update II, 10/3/2004: I spelled the word wrong. Correct spelling in comments.It means preparatory work on the contribution to the discussion of the maintenance support system for the installation equipment of the northeast coast's air surveillance simulator.
Not only is this the longest Swedish word, it is also, apparently, the longest word of any language. Something for Swedes to be proud of, I should think.
Comments
This blog started on Blogger Pro. It was revamped and moved to MT almost exactly a year ago, remember?
Posted by: Stefan from 213.114.151.89 on March 10, 2004 01:24 AM
the hyphens have to disqualify that word...
Posted by: mike d from 64.105.208.75 on March 10, 2004 07:21 AM
Oh, no, I had to put those in to stop the word from breaking my site.
Posted by: Stefan from 213.114.151.86 on March 10, 2004 09:56 AM
OK, hyphens are gone, I think it looks better to see my site groan with effort.
Posted by: Stefan from 213.114.151.86 on March 10, 2004 01:56 PM
Shouldn't that be "Nordˆstersjˆkustartilleriflygspaningssimulatoranl‰ggningsmaterielunderhÂllsuppfˆljningssystemdiskussionsinl‰ggsfˆrberedelsearbeten"?
Apologies. You are correct. I had no idea, but while "east" is ost, "the east" is ˆster, it turns out.
Okay, let's take a look at the word:
Nordˆstersjˆ-
what kind of word is that? The northern part of the Baltic sea? That does not exist. You would talk about the specific coastline, like Norrt‰ljekusten or something like that. Or maybe Bottenviken, because that is what I suspect they are getting at here.
kustartilleri-
this is a proper word
flygspaningssimulator-
as is this, but together they are redundant, because the kustartilleri does not handle the flygspaning, that is done by luftv‰rnet, so they need not simulate it either.
anl‰ggningsmaterielunderhÂllsuppfˆljningssystem-
you do not need a system to specifically track the maintenance of the material from which the buildings are built. If you strike the material part you get a proper word, but not a word that anybody would use.
diskussionsinl‰ggs-
a proper word
fˆrberedelsearbeten
which togeher with this means the work you do to prepare a statement. What?
And together the whole word means absolutely nothing. It is not a proper word. The words that make it up are proper words, but the entire word is, pure and simple, BS.
Posted by: Marie from 213.66.217.126 on March 10, 2004 03:09 PM
I use it every day. very useful word
Posted by: Joachim from 129.178.88.75 on March 10, 2004 03:30 PM
I take no responsibility for the word, only for misplaced diacriticals, which I had to add myself, having found the word umlautless and unloved, like a freakshow exhibit paraded around various "cool-word" sites. The translation is also mine, and, one hopes, more accurate than the current ones available on the web.
On a separate note, as for "preparatory work on the contribution to the discussion of..." I can tell you from first-hand experience that a lot of that goes on here in Sweden. Meetings are held early and often.
Posted by: Stefan from 213.114.151.126 on March 10, 2004 05:30 PM
"Meetings are held early and often."
Of course they are!
Got to have the fika (ger. fikken) early in the day, before business gets going.
Posted by: WabbleToot from 217.208.168.71 on March 10, 2004 08:45 PM
It would be easy to construct much longer words and it has been done many times.(We could add to your word, for instance,"arbetsgruppsordfˆrande" or something). But those are just constructs, without meaning and never to be used. The longest *real* word I have seen was the the title of a text book that a fellow passenger was reading in the subway in Stockholm:
"Trafikledarassistentutbildningsgrundkurs."
Posted by: Bengt O. from 195.170.89.39 on March 12, 2004 01:48 PM
Ah, apologies, I have an unfortunate tendency to make inside jokes and then not explain them. It's all explained in this post:
Posted by: Stefan from 213.114.151.97 on March 17, 2004 10:23 PM
Are you a subscriber to Blogger Pro?
Posted by: Felix from 24.193.96.101 on March 10, 2004 01:21 AM